


What I Need

by oceans_blue8



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant through Season 5, Canon Divergence, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Mostly Canon Compliant, Mostly Nichorello but Vauseman in later chapters, Nichorello, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22182844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceans_blue8/pseuds/oceans_blue8
Summary: Lorna Morello has always thought she was straight. That is, until a certain junkie philosopher turns her entire life upside down...[Nichorello fix it fic]
Relationships: Lorna Morello & Nicky Nichols, Lorna Morello/Nicky Nichols, Piper Chapman/Alex Vause
Comments: 56
Kudos: 84





	1. I Won't Say I'm in Love (Lorna)

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been thinking about writing this story ever since I finished OITNB, mostly because Nicky is my precious baby and didn't deserve any of the awful shit she went through in season 7. And also because I've always loved Nichorello, and I wanted the opportunity to explore that relationship from both sides.  
> You could call this a sort of "fix it" fic. It's mostly canon compliant and will focus on some of the key scenes of the series, but I intend to give these two the happily-ever-after they deserve!  
> Title is from the song "What I Need" by Hayley Kiyoko and Kehlani.  
> I hope you enjoy it! :)

_“At least out loud—I won’t say I’m in love.”_

How had it come to this?

She can’t help the sounds that spill from her mouth—the gasps, the moans, the fervent pleas to a god she’s not sure she believes in anymore—and the single pulsating need that buzzes through her brain and her heart and her body until it’s too much to stand. Her back is pressed up against the pulpit, her head thrown back and eyes screwed shut as she gasps out words of encouragement to Nicky. Prison sex may be illicit, but Lorna has never been good at being quiet—especially when it’s Nicky’s head and fingers between her thighs. No one else has ever had quite the same capacity to make her scream.

She’s panting; whining, almost, all wrapped up in the sensation of Nicky’s fingers, and she has to bite her lip to keep from saying something she doesn’t mean. This whole affair had started innocently enough—well, as innocently as lesbian prison sex could start—which was to say that it was no-strings attached, purely physical. And that was the way Lorna had wanted it. She was straight, after all.

It wasn’t like she could’ve anticipated the butterflies she got when Nicky so much as looked at her these days. It wasn’t like she could’ve known just how easy it would become to let the façade slip in a moment like this—her head all fuzzy with pleasure, every fiber of her body attuned to the woman kneeling between her legs—to moan Nicky’s name through her painted lips, to let her emotions come spilling out amidst the haze of sensation.

But she’s straight. She likes men, not women. Never women, and definitely not a certain junkie philosopher with big brown eyes and an irresistible quirk to her mouth. So Lorna bites her lip and closes her eyes and tries to imagine Christopher’s face, Christopher’s fingers, when all she really wants to do is scream Nicky’s name.

And then it’s over. Lorna breaks, and the sounds coming out of her mouth can’t be considered words anymore as she shakes and gasps and falls apart.

She looks down at Nicky—beautiful, precious, fluffy-haired Nicky, who’s sitting up with that trademark smirk that makes Lorna’s heart melt and saying something about her left arm that Lorna doesn’t quite catch. She’s looking at Nicky and suddenly she’s feeling like crying, and that’s when she knows.

It’s something she’s said a thousand times before—“Nichols, we gotta stop”—but this time she means it. Last name, not first. No terms of endearment, no begging for Nicky to touch her and make her melt the way only she can. Lorna pulls her bra up, hoping to create a physical barrier between them.

“No, we can’t.” Nicky laughs, wiping her mouth. “I gotta work out the other side. Otherwise I'll be asymmetrical like a crab, or a tennis pro.”

She doesn’t understand. Lorna’s throat tightens, but she refuses to let herself cry. This is casual, isn’t it? She’s straight. She has a fiancée, she has a life waiting for her on the outside, she’s got to make Nicky understand—

“No, no, no.” She hates how weak she sounds even to herself as she pulls up her underwear, wishing she could say it with more force. This is what she wants, isn’t it? She wants a real life with Christopher, not this prison fantasy that will end the second she’s finally free. “No more. I’m engaged.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Nicky drawls, slapping Lorna’s thighs playfully. “Get it while you can!”

“No!” Lorna looks Nicky full in the eyes. She wishes this could be easy, but this is Nicky; Lorna’s feelings for her have never been easy. “No, it’s not fair to Christopher. And—and I need to start tightening up,” she rambles, unsure of how else to make her point clear, “you’re making me feel like a cave.”

“Baby, it’s a cunt, huh?” There’s no hurt yet, only bemusement and that effortless confidence that Nicky always exudes. “It stretches.”

She sees the confusion in Nicky’s eyes—the way she’s trying to play it off as a joke, just like she always does. Because it’s not like Lorna hasn’t done this a thousand times before; it’s not like no matter how hard she tries, she doesn’t always end up right back with her hands in that glorious hair as Nicky’s tongue does sinful things between her thighs.

But this time is different.

“Yeah, sometimes I feel like you’re trying to climb inside my womb,” Lorna snaps, suddenly defensive, but Nicky still shrugs it off.

“What can I say, I’ve got mommy issues.”

“Well,” Lorna sits up, placing a hand on Nicky’s cheek, “I don’t want to do it anymore. This was the last time.”

And that’s when it finally hits her. Lorna can see the change come over Nicky’s face—it’s in her eyes, mostly. Her eyes have always been the most honest part of her. The first time Lorna met her, way back when she’d been one of the newbies in her orange uniform, she’d been struck by the contrast between Nicky’s tough-girl swagger and the inherent softness of those big doe eyes.

But the tough-girl act slips only for a moment; a long pause, and then:

“All right,” Nicky says, nonchalant as ever. Her eyes are hard; she’s looking at Lorna, but not like she’s really seeing her. “Yeah, it’s cool. Just at least get me off first, all right?”

Lorna doesn’t know how to say what she needs to. All she knows is that she wants to run as far away as possible before she’s tempted to take it all back and beg for Nicky’s forgiveness. “That’s not very classy.”

“We’re having sex in a fucking chapel.” Now she’s angry. “Come on, you wanna give me blue balls?”

Lorna opens her mouth to reply when—

“Fuck!”

“Shit!”

Nicky and Lorna duck behind the pulpit, hiding from view of the newcomers. Lorna peeks around the corner and spots Pennsatucky and Sister Ingalls, accompanied by the prison chaplain.

Turning back to Nicky, she grimaces. “I thought you said the service wasn’t for another half hour.”

“It was.” Nicky sounds irritated. “You take too long to come.”

*

Later that night, Lorna cries herself to sleep.

Nicky had avoided her all day after that; Lorna had almost wanted to confront her about it, but she knew it would only make things worse. What could she even say?

This was the right decision. Lorna knows it; soon enough, Nicky will realize it, too.

Because Lorna’s heart has always belonged to Christopher, from that very first day when they had quite literally run into one another in that most romantic of settings—the post office. Since then, he’d been all she could think about; those dashing, classic heartthrob looks dominated her every dream, and her every waking moment was dedicated to imagining their happily-ever-after. Just thinking of him had kept her warm during those first long prison nights. Even when he’d ignored her affections, when he’d said for her to leave him alone—well, it was all just another chapter out of their perfect love story, wasn’t it? Just like something out of _West Side Story,_ all forbidden romance and star-crossed passion.

 _This is how it is supposed to be_ , Lorna reminds herself, pushing her face further into the pillow so that Big Boo won’t hear her whimpering and take the opportunity to remind Lorna just how pathetic this really is. She can just hear the quip now: _what, Morello, still can’t admit you’re a carpet-muncher like the rest of us?_

But she’s _not_. She knows she’s not because she’s never had a problem imagining a future with any guy—all it takes is one date, one good kiss to get her all tingling and fizzy and thinking of white picket fences and the three adorable children they’ll raise in a house in the suburbs. But she’s never been able to imagine a future with Nicky; not like that, anyway. Her imagination can’t seem to extend beyond the cinderblock walls and barbed-wire fences of Litchfield, or maybe she just won’t let it; either way, she struggles to picture Nicky in any other context. What would she even look like wearing anything but those prison-issued khakis? Lorna dresses and undresses her like a doll in her mind; she imagines jeans and a low-cut blouse that shows off Nicky’s curves, slicks back those untamed curls in their shade of somewhere-between-red-and-blonde until they’re styled into a chic updo. Lorna imagines doing her makeup—less eyeliner than Nicky usually uses, a slight blush to her cheeks, pale pink lipstick that gives her an air of girlish femininity. The image creeps into Lorna’s mind of Nicky in a wedding dress with roses to match her lips, walking down an aisle in a church, just like Lorna had always imagined her perfect wedding.

But gay marriage isn’t even legal. That’s just a fantasy, and besides, Lorna can’t be a lesbian. She’s never had feelings for girls _like that_. Not even that one time in high school when she’d drunkenly kissed a girl at a party—the cheerleader’s lips had been soft, but Lorna had only had eyes for the handsome jock ogling them from across the room. Nicky is a one-off, a momentary confusion, a stumbling block on the way to her easy, suburban, _heterosexual_ paradise.

And who’s to say these feelings are real, anyway? They say prison changes a woman; maybe that’s all this is, just another temptation for her to resist. Not that she’s been good at resisting temptation in the past. Lorna’s life has been a long series of mistakes. That’s why she’s so determined to do things right this time—with Christopher, of course.

Nicky is just one more regrettable decision.

Breaking it off with her is the only thing Lorna has done right in this whole mess of wrong. She knows she’s hurt Nicky’s feelings, and knowing that hurts Lorna’s heart, too. But maybe it’s better this way.

Maybe if Nicky hates her, Lorna will learn not to love her so much.


	2. Never the Right Time (Nicky)

“ _I’m twisted, confused, and I really want you, but I don’t want to ruin what we have now.”_

Nicky had noticed her immediately—all dolled up like she was. Glossy brown hair primly curled, long eyelashes emphasized even more by mascara, the red lipstick in a shade so bright it rivaled the orange of her newly issued prison uniform. She was the very picture of performative femininity—which was to say, the opposite of Nicky’s usual type. She usually went for the more… authentic ones, girls who had an edge to them.

But there was something about the new girl that had caught Nicky’s eye. She watched her for a moment, the way her brown eyes glittered as she looked anxiously around her surroundings before finally catching Nicky’s gaze.

Nicky smirked, winked, opened her mouth to call out to the new girl when—

“Yo, Nichols. You comin’ or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” she mumbled, then turned and followed her friend down the hall, casting one last glance at the brunette before she went.

*

“C’mon, Morello, lighten up.” Nicky took the brunette’s arm with a smirk and a swagger. “I’ve got something I wanna show you.”

Lorna glanced around nervously; Nicky could see the jitters in her eyes as Morello bit her lip. “I-I dunno, what if we get caught?”

“We won’t,” Nicky said bluntly, leading her companion down the hall. “Trust me, I’m not exactly new here.”

Nicky could feel Lorna’s fingers digging into her arm as she pushed open the door to the chapel, scanning the room. Thankfully, it was empty. Prying Lorna’s hand off her bicep so she could take it in her own, she dragged the reluctant newcomer up to the front of the room and behind the pulpit, ducking down to sit behind it.

“Why are we here?”

Lorna had dropped her hand and joined her, scooting across the floor to sit next to Nicky—just a hair closer than she had expected. Though only their upper arms brushed now, Nicky could feel every inch of contact, skin practically tingling where they touched.

 _Shit_. Lorna had been here what, six days now? Prison did that to you—everything was more intense here. Relationships formed fast and fell apart even faster; it was inevitable, with so many of them living and breathing together all the time. Nicky knew that better than anyone. She’d banged many a girl in a shower stall or behind the pulpit—in this very place they were sitting—just to pass a few minutes, make the time more bearable.

But still, six days had to be some kind of record. Six days in, and she was already acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. How many more days before she started doodling their names inside a fucking heart in her notebook? She really needed to get ahold of herself here.

Nicky ran a hand through her messy mane of hair, trying to play it cool. _She’s a straight girl, you idiot. Lezzie rule number one: never fall for a straight girl. All they do is fuck you over and break your heart._

Blinking, she focused back on Lorna, who had fixed her with a quizzical look and was raising an eyebrow, a slight smile playing across her lips.

“Um, earth to Nichols?”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Nicky reached into her pocket, producing a small, cylindrical object. She’d had Red bring it in as a favor. It had taken a fair bit of begging on her part—something Nicky detested on principle—but Red had relented eventually. _Anything for my favorite daughter._

“Close your eyes.”

Lorna obediently closed them, and Nicky reached out, taking her hand. She placed the tube of lipstick in the center of the brunette’s palm, closing her fingers around it. Letting her hand linger against Lorna’s just a touch longer than necessary, she said, “Alright, you can look now.”

“Oh, you didn’t!” Lorna’s bright smile made Nicky’s heart melt just a little more than it should’ve. “How did you get this?”

Nicky shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “I have my ways.”

“Thank you.” Lorna’s voice was earnest, her gaze fixing Nicky in a way that made the blonde avert her eyes and fight back a blush. Their hands still laid tangled between them, the little tube of lipstick still cradled in Lorna’s palm.

As if compelled by an impulse she couldn’t control, Nicky reached out to brush a wayward brown curl back behind Lorna’s ear. “Anytime, kid. Anytime.”

*

“So.” Big Boo materialized behind Nicky’s chair, sliding into the seat next to her. “Can’t help but notice how much you’ve been hanging around my new bunkie.”

Nicky didn’t look up from her breakfast, choosing instead to continue her casual probing of the gelatinous oatmeal with a spoon. “Last I checked, you didn’t have a monopoly on new chicks.”

“Fair enough.” Big Boo snorted and raised her hands in mock surrender. “All I’m saying is, you better be careful with that one. Morello seems pretty damn straight to me.”

“Yeah, well,” Nicky drawled, the corner of her mouth quirking up as she peered at Boo from under those heavily mascara-ed eyelashes, “you know what they say. Spaghetti’s straight… ‘til it’s wet.”

Boo smirked, then jerked her head to the right, gesturing at the door. “You’ve got company.”

“Hey, Morello!” Nicky turned, waving a hand to beckon to Lorna. “Over here!”

She couldn’t help but notice the way Lorna’s face lit up when they made eye contact; the brunette gave the most adorable wave as she hurried over, and Nicky tried her best to convince herself that what she was feeling was most definitely _not_ butterflies. Boo was probably right, anyway; Morello was straight. Lord only knew she talked about her fiancé enough.

Fighting to keep her cool, she turned back to Big Boo and noticed the older woman giving her a skeptical look.

“What? Just tryin’ to be nice here,” Nicky said with an overexaggerated shrug. “Not like I’m catching feelings or anything. Besides, you’re in no position to judge, you’re all wifed up yourself.”

“Yeah, well, at least my Mercy’s a bona fide dyke,” Boo said. “Just be careful, Nichols.”

“Careful o’ what?” Lorna chirped, settling into the seat on Nicky’s other side with a bright smile on her face. Nicky couldn’t help but notice the vivid red tint to her lips and smiled a little to herself in satisfaction.

Looping an arm around Morello’s shoulders, Nicky drew the smaller girl in closer. “Nothing important, kid.” Lowering her voice, she added, “That shade of red really suits you, you know.”

Nicky swore she could see Lorna blush; the brunette ducked her head, biting at one corner of her red lips to stifle the small smile spreading across her face. Boo gave them both a judgmental look out of the corner of her eye, but Nicky couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Christopher always said red was my color,” Lorna said, and Nicky suddenly wanted to kick herself.

 _Fuck._ Morello really was straight. She had to keep reminding herself of it before she got carried away with some hopeless fantasy that would only end up breaking her heart again.

Nicky had always done this to herself, ever since that first time in high school when she’d fallen for her straight best friend. She’d convinced herself maybe there was something there, that maybe her feelings were reciprocated. She’d overanalyzed every little touch of Vanessa’s hand, every night they spent cuddled together on her parents’ couch, watching movies and talking until two AM. But it had meant nothing to Vanessa, and it had taken a tearful confession that had resulted in losing her best friend for Nicky to get that through her head. She’d learned her lesson: straight girls—no matter how hot or sweet or wonderful, no matter how much they seemed to be flirting with you—were never, _ever_ , worth it.

But she swore sometimes she saw Lorna looking at her like something out of those romantic movies the brunette so adored: those melted-chocolate eyes fixed thoughtfully on Nicky’s face when she thought she wasn’t looking, only to dart away when they made eye contact. In those moments, Nicky wanted nothing more than to take Lorna’s face in her hands and plant a tender kiss on her lips. But inevitably, Lorna looked away before she had the courage to actually do it.

Besides, Lorna probably didn’t feel that way about her anyway. Nicky knew she could come on too strong; she’d always been aggressive in her affection. She’d grown up being called “bossy” more times than she could count, and she supposed it was true. It was just that Nicky didn’t see what was wrong with going for what she wanted; you couldn’t wait around for things to come to you, you had to go out and get them for yourself. And that philosophy had always worked for her in the past.

Lorna was different, though. She was fragile; she made Nicky want to protect her with a ferocity she’d never felt for anyone else before. She could almost justify it to herself as a sisterly sort of love if she tried hard enough, but she knew deep down that the feelings she had for Lorna weren’t just platonic. It was a crush—a silly, stupid crush that Nicky knew she could never act on.

So she had to be gentle with Lorna. She had to nod and smile and say, “Well, your Christopher’s got good taste then,” as though it didn’t break her heart.

~ ~ ~

Lorna’s mascara is streaked down her cheeks, her little red mouth twisted up into a tortured grimace. It hurts Nicky’s heart to see her like this, so much so that she can feel her stomach coiling up in knots inside her body. The pain is almost physical, it’s so strong; she lets herself feel it, wishing she could take some of it away from Lorna.

“Do you hate me?” Lorna’s voice is so earnest when she asks the question that Nicky has to chuckle a little bit.

“No, I don’t hate you.” Nicky looks Lorna straight in the eyes, willing her to hear the truth in her words. She needs to be a safe place for Lorna right now, to let her know that there’s no judgment here. “Well, it is getting clearer every second that you’re totally bat-shit crazy, but you’re a beautiful, sweet girl.”

She runs her hand through Lorna’s hair at the nape of her neck, trying to tell her with a simple touch that it’s all going to be alright. Her own mind roils with the shock of the revelation that Christopher _isn’t_ actually Lorna’s fiancé—and the selfish, knee-jerk reaction that maybe she has a chance with her after all—but she pushes it aside, focuses instead on reassuring Lorna, whose small form is crumpled on the steps in front of her.

“ _Fuck_ this guy,” Nicky says, some small part of her wishing she could really enact revenge on him for what he’s done—how he’s made Lorna feel. She knows Lorna isn’t blameless, but even so. She doesn’t deserve to feel like this. “So many people are gonna love you.”

“No.” Lorna sounds so small, so resigned and hopeless, and Nicky can feel her heart breaking anew. “No, nobody’s gonna love me.”

Nicky knows what she’s about to say could change everything, but she hesitates only for a second before she says it.

“I do.”

And now it’s out there. Lorna looks at her for a long moment, tears still frozen in her eyes, inky streaks still trailing down her cheeks. Then Nicky opens her arms, pulls her close, and Lorna sinks into her embrace like she’s coming home.

A little swirl of unease seeds itself deep in Nicky’s stomach, but she forces it down and focuses instead on the warmth of the woman curled in her lap. It will be okay. She’s sure Lorna knows it already, anyway; Nicky has never been a subtle person. Just because she’s never said it in so many words doesn’t mean she hasn’t told Lorna a hundred times already.

She knows exactly why she had to say it now: she could never let Lorna believe she’s unworthy of being loved. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Nicky knows that all too well. She’d told herself so many times to stop falling for Lorna, that these feelings would lead only to heartbreak. But no matter how hard she’d tried to stop it from happening—no matter how many girls she fucked in the same secret places she’d once made Lorna scream, attempting to replace their old memories with new ones—nothing works. Lorna always feels inevitable to her.


	3. Molecules (Lorna)

_“So what should I do? All that’s left is molecules of you.”_

Lorna is in her bunk, idly leafing through a book, when Red comes in, wild-eyed and panicky. For a second Lorna doesn’t react—she’s never seen Red like this, and she feels her heart skip a beat as her mind runs through the thousand horrible scenarios that could’ve brought her to this state. Red is always calm, always icy cold and collected. For tears to be pricking at the edges of her eyes like this… well, Lorna almost doesn’t want to know what’s happened.

They stare at each other for a long moment before Red rasps out, “Come quick. It’s Nicky.”

Lorna can feel her stomach drop. She almost doubles over, almost sinks back into her bunk, but Red is there at her side, taking her by the hand and pulling her up and out into the hall. She catches only snippets of what Red’s saying— _Luschek, heroin, transferred to Max_ —as they run frantically down the halls toward—what? Can they even catch Nicky in time?

And then they’re wheeling around the corner and there she is, and Lorna throws herself at Nicky desperately, babbling, “Nicky! Baby”—the endearment slips out before she can stop herself, and she can’t bring herself to take it back—“what’s happening?”

“Stay back!” Donaldson snaps, and Lorna raises her hands in surrender, hovering as close as she can to Nicky without touching her. Her mouth forms silent words— _what happened, what happened, what happened?_ —but she can’t get them past her lips.

Somewhere far away, she can hear Red’s and Nicky’s voices, but they’re drowned out by the sound of Lorna’s heartbeat in her ears. Her vision is blurred with tears. She sees Nicky through them, standing tall despite everything with that same regal confidence Lorna has always admired. She’s known for a long time that Nicky isn’t as tough as she looks, but Nicky is doing a damn good job of pretending right now.

“You know you could have come to me if you were struggling,” Red’s saying, but Lorna’s just clutching the back of Nicky’s uniform desperately, as though if she holds on tight enough, she can prevent them from taking her away.

Lorna traces her fingers across the smooth ridges of the handcuffs encircling Nicky’s wrists. The shock of the metal against her fingertips is jarring, and it only makes her tears come harder. She wraps her arm around Nicky’s waist one last time—no, she can’t let herself think like that. Lorna can’t let herself believe she’ll never see Nicky again, or else she doesn’t know how she’ll survive this place.

“I know,” Nicky says, and for the first time, her voice cracks.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because that’s not what I do, okay?”

Donaldson starts marching Nicky down the hall again, and Lorna can feel her slip from her grasp.

“I love you,” Nicky says, and Lorna’s not sure if it’s to Red or to her, but then Nicky is gone. She glances over her shoulder one last time, and then she’s really, really gone and—

“I love you, too!” Lorna gasps out. She stands there with Red for a long moment before bolting. She can’t let her just walk away—she has to see Nicky one last time, even if it’s through the window. She barrels up the stairs and throws herself at it, hands banging into the glass, tears nearly obscuring her vision as she watches Nicky be marched into the van. Pennsatucky sits in the driver’s seat; for a brief moment, Lorna wishes she still had her driving job. At least then they’d have a few more seconds, a few more minutes together. At least then Lorna could see her disappear into her new home, make sure she’s alright, fantasize about stealing the van again and taking it down to Max and ramming it through the doors to set her beautiful, beloved Nicky free.

The van vanishes around a corner. Lorna sinks to the floor, back pressed up against the window, and sobs.

*

Lorna floats through the next few days in a haze. Gina takes care of her, makes sure she eats at meals; Alex and Piper offer fond stories of Nicky and words of support; Boo gets her up and out of her bunk on the mornings when all she wants to do is roll back over and cry herself to sleep again, rules be damned.

She doesn’t even bother putting on makeup. At first she feels naked without it, but after a few hours she forgets it’s even missing. There’s a far greater hole in her life now. What’s the point in making herself look pretty when everything around her is so ugly? She can’t get through a single hour of the day without crying; there’s no point in putting on mascara when she knows it’ll be forming charcoal streaks down her face not twenty minutes later. Besides, there’s no one left to be pretty for anymore.

Red tries to talk to her about it, to comfort her, but Lorna doesn’t want to talk. She’s filled with so many emotions—grief, rage, hopelessness—but mostly regret. Only now that Nicky’s gone, now that it’s too late, can she acknowledge her own feelings.

She struggles with it for a long time, tossing and turning in her bunk long after everyone else has fallen asleep. She pictures Nicky in her mind: crazy blonde-red hair; clumped mascara; bright, always-blinking eyes; full, soft lips; the necklace always hanging from around her neck; the way her arms always felt on those rare nights when she snuck into Lorna’s bunk and just held her until she fell asleep.

Lorna tosses and turns and thinks, _I’m straight, I’ve always been._ She thinks, _I’m in love with Christopher. He’s my white knight, my Romeo, my Tony._ And then she feels the warm tears splash down on her cheeks and remembers the night after she broke things off with Nicky. She remembers the way she’d imagined Nicky would look in a wedding dress, the inexplicable wish she’d felt to make that dream a reality. She remembers the jealousy she’d felt watching Nicky go after those other girls, even though Lorna knew _she’d_ been the one to end their relationship. She thinks back on their first kiss, the first time they slept together, the day she’d sobbed in the stairwell and Nicky had held her and told her she loved her. She comes to an inescapable conclusion.

She’s in love with Nicky Nichols. She always has been, and now that Nicky is gone, Lorna is finally sure of it.

~ ~ ~

It had been less than a month since Lorna had arrived, but so much had changed since she’d gotten to prison that she found sometimes she could scarcely remember what life must’ve been like before. The first few nights had been the hardest: she’d cried herself to sleep wondering how she’d survive the next three years in this godforsaken place. Only picturing Christopher, imagining his strong arms wrapped around her, holding her tight, had comforted her enough to allow her to drift off to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

She didn’t think of him so much anymore. Some days she caught herself forgetting to think of him at all, and then she had to chastise herself, remind herself what she was here for. These three long years were only a journey to get back to her beloved, to get back to the picture-perfect life she’d always dreamed of. But somehow that seemed less and less important as the days passed; Lorna found herself focusing, more and more, on the here-and-now.

It was Nicky that made this place almost bearable. From the very first exaggerated wink the curly-haired woman had given her, Lorna had known she was special. And Nicky had proven it over and over again—she’d comforted her those first days, made her believe everything could be okay if they stuck together. She’d put in a good word for Lorna with Red, invited her into their little family without even a second thought.

They were sitting together now in what Lorna had come to think of as _their spot_ : the space behind the pulpit in Litchfield’s little chapel. It was where Nicky had taken her that very first week to give her the tube of lipstick that Lorna still kept hidden in her bunk, even though it was worn down and nearly unusable now.

“Now, I really think the whole thing would’ve ended _ve-ry_ differently if Maria had just told Tony that…” Lorna was saying as she flipped through yet another of her various bridal magazines. Nicky watched her as she spoke, fiddling with the hem of Lorna’s shirt, their limbs sprawled together in comfortable familiarity.

Lorna looked up from her magazine and met Nicky’s eye, cutting herself off in the middle of her sentence as their gazes met and her breath caught in her throat. Every once in a while, she caught Nicky looking at her like that: big doe eyes open and thoughtful, almost contemplative. Lorna always wanted to fall right into that look, let Nicky swallow her up and surround her with her soft warmth. But she always tore herself away before she could succumb to the temptation, wondering at the tightness in her chest that inevitably lingered after.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Nichols?” she asked today, feeling the beating of her heart speed up as she became hyper-aware of just how close the two were to one another, bundled together there behind the pulpit.

Nicky looked down—almost shyly, Lorna thought, but maybe she was imagining that. When she looked up again, her eyes still held that raw honesty, that vulnerability that Lorna didn’t quite know what to do with.

“Just how beautiful you look today, kid.” The way she said it was offhanded, casual, but it still sucked all the air out of Lorna’s lungs.

She couldn’t help the uncertainty in her response, the split second of hesitation before she replied. “Y-you really think so?”

Nicky still had those big brown eyes fixed on her. “Always.” She had an odd sort of smile on her lips—not her usual smirk, but something more tender, infinitely gentler.

Lorna wasn’t sure how it happened, but the next thing she knew, she was leaning in close to Nicky, still staring straight into those softly blinking brown eyes. Her own eyes darted down to Nicky’s lips; for the first time, she let herself imagine closing the gap between them, pressing her lips against Nicky’s. She imagined how soft they’d be, and how warm. It would be so easy to let this happen; could anyone blame her? A girl couldn’t be expected not to get lonely in prison. No one would blame her if she let this happen, if she kissed Nicky and pretended it was Christopher’s mouth she was feeling against her own. She leaned in closer, closing her eyes, and then—

—then Nicky was kissing her softly, and all thoughts of Christopher melted away under the sensation of her red lips pressed against Nicky’s chapped ones. She’d been right—Nicky’s lips were warm and soft against her own, and she stifled a moan at the sensation, opening her mouth as Nicky’s tongue swiped at her bottom lip.

Lorna leaned in even closer, letting Nicky’s tongue enter her mouth as she wound her fingers through the lion’s mane of hair on Nicky’s head. She could feel Nicky smile against her lips, felt herself being drawn closer as an arm was thrown around her waist. She felt herself gasp into Nicky’s mouth, unsure whether she wanted to melt into the other woman’s arms or wrench herself away.

Before she knew it, Nicky was leaning back, leaving Lorna’s head whirling.

“I’m not—” she mumbled, panting, as they pulled apart. “I’m not a—a lesbian.”

Nicky chuckled, lips red and smeared with Lorna’s lipstick. She reached out to place a hand on the side of the brunette’s face, one thumb swiping soothingly across her cheek. “Whatever you say, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene where Nicky was taken away to Max really killed me; for me, it was the first moment when I thought Lorna might really be in love with her as well. So here's my take on that scene, and on their first kiss!  
> Let me know what you thought. :)  
> The next chapter will be longer and a bit ~sexier~ than previous chapters, so look forward to that in the near future!


	4. Honey (Nicky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised: this chapter is longer and has more explicit sexual content than previous chapters. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, so please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts. Once again, thanks for reading!

_“All the pretty girls in the world, but I’m in this space with you.”_

Max gives Nicky a lot of time to think—possibly too much time. She spends her days memorizing the capitals of all fifty US states, pushing a mop across the floor, reading and rereading the books one of the ladies wheels about on a little cart that serves as the library here. She never thought she’d miss Litchfield—the minimum-security part, that is—but from down here, it practically seems like paradise. Her mind rewrites her memories, reframes her days there in an idyllic light.

So many times she thinks about turning back to drugs. It would be fitting, wouldn’t it? They’d sent her down here for heroin; may as well make their twisted accusations true if she’s going to be stuck in Max for the rest of her sentence. Lord only knows it would be easy enough to get her hands on anything she wanted—for a price, of course.

But Nicky stops herself every time. She goes to weekly AA meetings, recites her capitals again, focuses on cleaning the floors until they’re absolutely spotless. They’re little things, but they help to keep her sane—and more importantly, clean.

She thinks of Lorna and Red and all her friends from camp often. It’s the only thing that gets her through the day sometimes; it’s not like there are many opportunities to make friends down here. The women in Max aren’t exactly cuddly, and Nicky’s attempt to stay on the straight-and-narrow only isolates her further. But that’s okay. She sure as hell isn’t trying to get herself any more time added to her sentence.

Sweeping her mop across the floor of the courtyard, Nicky closes her eyes and enjoys the weak rays of sunlight on her cheeks. Standing there, she can almost imagine she’s outside at camp again. She can almost hear Lorna’s voice, almost feel her hand clasped in Nicky’s as they stand close together and stare out over the grass.

_“It’s so pretty out here, ya know?” Lorna’s hair is blowing in the breeze, little strands floating up around the edges and tickling Nicky’s cheeks. “I just love spring, the way everything’s all green again, and—oh, look!”_

_Lorna’s eyes follow the motion of a little black bird as it flies toward the prison. She grabs Nicky’s hand and spins around, gesturing to a little mass of twigs and grasses nestled up under the eaves._

_“I wonder if there are babies in there,” she says excitedly, tugging Nicky over for a closer look._

_Nicky lets herself be led, the cool wind ruffling her hair and sending a chill down her spine. It’s early spring still—the air has a slight bite to it, and the sun’s rays shine palely down on them both. Lorna’s skin is warm against Nicky’s palm, and she draws the brunette closer to her, dropping her hand to wrap an arm around the smaller girl._

_“Ah, the miracle of life,” Nicky says wryly, lifting a foot and gingerly stepping over a pile of bird shit on the ground in an effort to avoid getting the white, gooey substance on her shoes._

_“Don’t you just love babies?” Lorna’s got a dreamy look in her eyes, her hands clasped together in front of her chest in overwrought excitement. “I mean, they’re just_ sooo _absolutely precious, aren’t they?”_

_“Uh-huh,” Nicky mutters as Lorna goes on, tuning her out in favor of watching her, soaking up Lorna’s every gesture. The excitement in her expression is contagious, and soon Nicky finds herself smiling just looking at her._

_“Oh. My. God!” Lorna squeals, her face flushed from the cool air as she turns to look at Nicky. “I can hear them chirping!”_

_“Adorable,” Nicky agrees, but really she’s thinking Lorna is the adorable one._

_“When I get out of here, I’m gonna have a whole buncha kids,” Lorna declares, looking at Nicky out of the corner of her eye as if to gauge her reaction. “Maybe enough for a whole baseball team. Wouldn’t that be nice?”_

_Nicky opens her mouth to reply, when—_

“Inmate Nichols! Less daydreaming, more working.”

Reality bleeds back into focus around her as Nicky opens her eyes again, blinking away the daydream with a pang of wistfulness. She could be standing up in the yard at camp this very moment, but instead she’s here in Max. Instead, she has to stand here imagining a future with Lorna that will never come true; she’d given it all up, and for what? For one little baggie of heroin, one more hit?

She curses herself every day for making the stupid, stupid decision not to get rid of that tiny bag with the rest of the supply. If only she’d been able to control herself, if only she’d been able to resist temptation. If only she weren’t such a fucking _junkie._ She tells herself she hadn’t even really intended to use it, that’s the ironic thing. And yet the heroin had managed to fuck up her entire life all over again.

Nicky had said once that heroin was her best girlfriend. She guesses it’s only fair that now it has ruined the best real relationship she’s ever had.

*

She meets up with Stella in the bathroom late one night because why not? She still has needs, goddamnit, and for once it’s nice to lose control.

Nicky lets Stella strip her clothes off because it’s what she deserves. After every stupid decision she’s made in her fucked up life, she deserves to feel naked, violated, exposed underneath the bright fluorescent lights that stay on in Max no matter the hour. She lets Stella push her back against the cold tile of the shower wall, right there in the open for anyone to see should they walk in. An image flashes through Nicky’s mind of Lorna, pale body stretched out above her, head thrown back in ecstasy, both of them too lost in each other to notice anyone else. How many times had they done this very thing in the showers up at camp? How many times had Nicky made Lorna cry out and breathe hard and clutch onto her head, murmuring sweet nothings as she found her release with Nicky’s mouth moving slick between her thighs?

“You’re sexy as fuck, you know that, Nichols?” Stella says into her ear, still-clothed body pressed up close against Nicky’s bare skin. Her breath tickles Nicky’s cheek, and Nicky forces out a low chuckle.

“So I’ve been told.”

Stella kneels before her, hands skimming up and down Nicky’s sides. “Let me take care of you, yeah?”

Nicky’s murmur of assent turns to a strangled moan as Stella’s fingers press into her. She closes her eyes and lets herself pretend for a moment that it’s Lorna’s hands on her body, Lorna’s voice whispering words of encouragement from below her. Then Stella’s mouth is on her neck, nipping, leaving marks, her hand still between Nicky’s thighs, and the illusion breaks.

Lorna had always been the gentlest lover Nicky had ever had. The only marks she’d ever left behind had been pale lipstick kisses, red smudges in the wake of her painted mouth fluttering lightly across Nicky’s neck and collarbones. The one time she’d left a hickey—a tiny, barely-there mark at the top of Nicky’s left breast—she’d traced it over and over with her fingertip, biting her smeared scarlet lips. _I didn’t mean to hurt you._ Nicky had laughed it off, left little marks of her own all over the inside of Lorna’s thighs as payback, secretly warm inside thinking of the tenderness in those words. Lorna had always understood instinctively that Nicky wasn’t meant to be marked, wasn’t meant to be owned.

Stella bites. Her teeth are all over Nicky’s body—scoring the soft skin of her neck, tracing their way across the tender area under her breasts. She’s forceful and rough, not unlike Nicky herself, controlling Nicky’s movements with an arm pressed low across her hips. All the while she mutters dirty words into Nicky’s ear, mumbles them against her skin. Nicky can feel her lips move even as she traces her tongue ever lower, pausing just before she reaches the place where Nicky needs her most.

“Say my name,” Stella purrs, low and warm. She looks up with those clear green eyes, hair flopping down effortlessly over her sharp cheekbones, gaze expectant.

Nicky forces it past her tight throat. “Stella.”

“Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

It’s humiliating, Nicky thinks, even as the words pour from her mouth. She’s not meant to be the one begging, desperate, hips bucking up toward Stella’s mouth as she loses all control over her own body. Her own voice, hoarse and husky, echoes in her ears as she repeats Stella’s name. Shame burns bright in her stomach as Stella reaches up and scratches her nails down Nicky’s chest, right over her scar, and she almost wants to pull away. It’s too intimate, too personal. She feels raw and vulnerable, and the panic swells up in her throat. She nearly gasps out a command for Stella to stop, but then she lets her head fall back against the tile wall as the physical sensation sweeps her away. Only for tonight, Nicky will surrender. She will give up control even if it kills her, even as the tears leak out from beneath her closed eyelids.

“That’s right,” Stella’s saying, “say my name, baby. Say my name.”

“Stella,” Nicky gasps out, expelling any thoughts of Lorna from her mind. She’s lost now, unmoored and unable to find it in herself to care. “Stella, Stella, Stella!”

~ ~ ~

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Nicky said. She could feel Lorna’s hesitation, but she wasn’t sure if it was just nerves or if the other girl really wanted to back out. Either way, she didn’t want to push too far. It had taken a lot for them just to get to this point—Lorna still wasn’t ready to admit that her attraction to Nicky was any more than prison loneliness, at least not out loud.

“No, no.” Lorna shook her head, voice small and unsure despite the seeming certainty of her words. “I wanna do it.”

“Only if you’re sure.” Nicky couldn’t help the swell of nerves that rose up in her own stomach. “And we can stop anytime you want if you change your mind.”

Lorna nodded, bottom lip pinched between her teeth. Her lipstick was shiny and flawless, every strand of her brown hair still perfectly in place. To look at her, you’d never know that not five minutes earlier she’d been panting and squirming under the attentions of Nicky’s clever tongue and fingers.

Nicky thought she looked beautiful; then again, she always thought that. In these moments, though, Lorna was more vulnerable than ever. She was so soft under Nicky’s hands, so trusting. Nicky couldn’t help but feel honored that out of all the people in the world, she got to be the one to see every part of Lorna like that.

“And we’ve got time, right? The COs won’t be around to check our bunks for another two hours?” Lorna’s voice was hushed in the dim quiet of the empty chapel; colored light filtered in through the stained glass from the lamp outside, giving her features a dreamy quality.

Nicky nodded. “Trust me, I’ve done this plenty of times.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” Lorna sounded like she was steeling herself; quickly, she reached out and grabbed Nicky’s hips, slipping her thumbs inside the waistband of her pants to brush over the soft skin there.

Nicky’s hands instinctively came up from her sides and wrapped around Lorna’s wrists. When Lorna gave her an inquisitive look, Nicky blew air out of her mouth, trying to calm herself. She let go of Lorna’s wrists, letting her own arms hang limply by her sides.

“Sorry. I’m just not used to this, that’s all.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, kneeling behind the pulpit, Lorna’s hands still firm on Nicky’s waist, before the corner of Nicky’s mouth began to quirk up. As one, they burst out in a fit of giggles, collapsing into one another in a warm heap on the floor.

Wrapping her arms around Lorna’s tiny frame, Nicky pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “This is silly, we don’t have to—”

Lorna cut her off with a sudden movement, wriggling out of her grasp to fix her wide, dark eyes on Nicky. Slowly, she reached out, cradling Nicky’s face between her hands.

“Listen, Nicky, baby. You’re not making me do anything. I _want_ to do this for you. Okay?”

They sat like that for a few heartbeats, staring into each other’s eyes, and then—

“Just kiss me,” Nicky breathed, not sure quite where the needy edge to her voice had come from.

Fingers tangling in Nicky’s thick hair, Lorna pulled Nicky’s mouth down to her own, kissing her with a ferocity that Nicky had never seen from her before. Lorna’s lips were velvety, sliding against Nicky’s with practiced ease. They’d done this a hundred times before, but the taste of Lorna’s mouth never ceased to send thrills tingling up and down her entire body.

“God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” Nicky all but growled, hands pushing up under Lorna’s shirt to cup at her breasts over her bra.

“Wait—no—let me,” Lorna gasped against her mouth. Pulling back, she kept her eyes fixed on Nicky as she climbed into the blonde’s lap, straddling her.

Breathing hard, Nicky let the brunette tug her shirt and tank off, lifting the khaki garment up and over her head. Lorna bundled it up and slipped it behind Nicky’s shoulders, pushing her down gently so that the crumpled shirt became a sort of makeshift pillow.

Lying there on the ground without her shirt, Nicky felt more vulnerable than she had in a long, long time. She hadn’t let any girl in here do this with her—she was a giver, she’d explained over and over, the simple act of getting girls off was enough to get her halfway there herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy it, but she was genuinely happy collecting others’ orgasms rather than having them herself. That way she could maintain her control, make sure she didn’t let anyone see her come apart.

She felt Lorna’s fingers come around the back of her neck, cradling her head and lacing through the strands of her hair. Lorna bent down over her and pressed a gentle kiss to her chest, right in the center of the scar that ran down between her breasts, slightly left of center and directly over her rapidly beating heart. Nicky’s breath hitched as Lorna followed her mouth with her fingers, ever so tenderly tracing the long line.

When Lorna sat up and opened her mouth to speak, Nicky braced herself, expecting her to ask the inevitable question. It was the first time she’d seen the scar, after all; Nicky had made a point of keeping her shirt on even when they fucked. The girls she’d been with were generally curious, and Nicky had gotten tired of the endless questions years ago. But instead, Lorna fixed her with that glittering stare, so much fondness in her dark eyes that Nicky almost flinched away under the intensity.

“You’re so beautiful, love,” she whispered. There was nothing shy or hesitant about the way she spoke now; the realization sent a shock of anticipation through Nicky’s entire body.

And there was nothing shy about Lorna’s next movement, either. Maddeningly slowly, she bent forward once more and planted a kiss on Nicky’s lips as her fingers slid ever lower and down the front of Nicky’s pants.

_Jesus fucking Christ._ Nicky stiffened involuntarily at the sensation of Lorna’s fingers slipping down between her legs. It had been so long since anyone had touched her there… she almost couldn’t believe it was happening now. And that Lorna was actually willing to do this. She’d daydreamed about it, sure. But she’d never _really_ expected Lorna to reciprocate, especially since the brunette was so adamant that she was 100% straight.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, no—” Nicky drew in a shuddering breath, nearly too distracted to form coherent words “—I mean, great. That’s great.”

Lorna was moving her fingers in soft circles now, and _fuck_ , Nicky couldn’t understand how she was already so fucking good at this. It was so fucking unfair for her to be this good. She knew just the amount of pressure to apply, and when her fingers slipped over Nicky’s clit, Nicky couldn’t help the strangled half-moan that bubbled up out of her throat.

“Jesus _fuck_ , Lorna,” she hissed, reaching up to haul Lorna’s face down to her for a long, passionate kiss. The brunette’s fingers were still tracing gentle patterns through her folds, and Nicky’s hips twitched, seeking more friction.

Lorna’s fingers hovered at her entrance, so close to where Nicky needed her to be. “Can I—?” she asked haltingly, and Nicky answered her without hesitation.

“God, yes.”

And then her fingers were sliding home, a little awkwardly at first and then more confidently. Readjusting, Lorna curled her fingers inside Nicky, causing the blonde to bite back a string of curse words and search frantically for something to hold onto. She ended up grasping at Lorna’s waist, the smaller girl still straddling her.

“Tell me what you like,” Lorna said, fingers still buried inside Nicky.

Nicky let out a little huff of pleasure mixed with frustration. “Well, don’t fucking _stop_ , for one thing.”

“So _im-pa-tient_.” Lorna drew out the second word in a singsong, and Nicky could’ve sworn she saw a slight smirk on her lips. Then her fingers were working again down between Nicky’s legs, and she couldn’t think anymore.

Eyes closed, head tilted back, Nicky lost herself in the feel of Lorna’s fingers plunging in and out of her, thumb every once in a while brushing over Nicky’s clit and causing her to jolt. Through the haze she could feel Lorna shifting, moving downwards until Nicky’s hands slipped off her waist and she was forced to grab at the curtain hanging from the back of the pulpit. Soon after, she felt Lorna’s fingers slip out of her pants completely.

“Fuck, Lorna.” Nicky groaned, lifting her head to look at the smaller woman. “ _Shit_ , don’t stop…”

Lorna was kneeling between her legs now, hands hooked in the waistband of Nicky’s pants. “Can I take these off?”

Nicky hesitated. Fingering was one thing, but to let Lorna see her— _all_ of her—was something else entirely. Before she could respond, Lorna was up at her side again, pushing Nicky’s hair out of her face to plant a smeared red kiss on her forehead.

“I want to taste you, Nicky,” she breathed. “I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

A shiver ran down Nicky’s spine. “You sure you mean that, kid?”

“Yes.”

“Then yeah, okay.”

Lorna kissed her cheek, and Nicky couldn’t help herself. Brushing Lorna’s brown curls out of her eyes, she brought the other girl’s head down to her mouth for one more lingering kiss. Her tongue swept over Lorna’s lip; Lorna’s mouth yielded easily to Nicky, who teasingly pulled back and let her teeth scrape over the brunette’s bottom lip.

“I really…” _Love you_ , she thought about saying, but under Lorna’s thoughtful gaze she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. Instead she shook her head, trying to affect an air of casual bemusement. “You’re wonderful, that’s all.”

“Aww, Nichols.” Lorna poked her cheek playfully. “I knew you were a real softie deep down.”

Nicky rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up before I take it back.”

Lorna’s laugh was musical as she trailed a finger down the side of Nicky’s body to her waist. This time, Nicky didn’t flinch as Lorna slowly pulled down her pants and then her underwear, leaving her naked except for her bra. She was filled with a mix of terror and pure desire, adrenaline burning through her veins as Lorna knelt between her legs.

Nicky closed her eyes, her grip white-knuckled as she clutched the blue curtains behind the pulpit as if letting go would mean certain death. She could feel the heat of Lorna’s breath ghosting over her skin, and it wasn’t long before she felt smooth lips being pressed to her inner thigh.

Her eyes snapped open. “I—I don’t know if we should—I mean, _I’m_ supposed to be the one who—”

“Hey, hey. Baby,” Lorna interrupted her, “we don’t have to do this. Only if it’s what you want. I just wanna make you feel good.”

“And for that I’m eternally grateful, kid.” Nicky tried to crack a smile, but she couldn’t help but feel that it seemed strained.

Lorna reached up, gently but firmly disentangling Nicky’s hand from the curtains so she could intertwine their fingers. “Can I try again?”

Biting her lip, Nicky exhaled, trying to push her anxiety out with the air. “Yeah.”

“Tell me if you want me to stop.”

“Yeah,” Nicky repeated dumbly, aware that she was gripping Lorna’s hand slightly too hard but unable to stop herself from doing it.

And then Lorna’s lips were back between her legs again, leaving wet, warm kisses. She started low, beginning with the inside of Nicky’s knees before continuing upward. Her thumb traced soothing circles on the back of Nicky’s hand all the while; Nicky felt herself melting from the sheer tenderness of the motion, tears pricking at the back of her eyelids as she focused on keeping her breathing steady.

When Lorna’s mouth finally reached the damp curls between Nicky’s thighs, Nicky couldn’t help the gasp that issued from her throat. Lorna squeezed her hand gently as she placed a soft kiss to Nicky’s warm center.

“You’re so…” Lorna’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

“So wet.” She sounded genuinely surprised.

Nicky gave a husky little laugh, unsure of whether to be self-conscious. “What, you couldn’t feel that before?”

“Not the same way.”

“Yeah, well, you tend to have that effect on me.” As soon as she said it, she regretted letting the words leave her mouth. It was too honest—too much to tell this beautiful, kind, genuine woman who somehow still insisted she was fucking _straight._

“You’ve gotta stop saying things like that,” Lorna said, cheeks glowing pink. “It’s not fair.”

“ _Pfft._ ” Nicky’s snort was incredulous. Of course Lorna was thinking of how this would affect her relationship with the precious, oft-mentioned Christopher, even now. Still, she asked anyway—maybe hearing it again would remind her why this affair with Lorna was such a bad idea. “Not fair to who?”

“You can’t be gettin’ me all hot and bothered when I’m supposed to be the one getting you off.”

Nicky couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face at the unexpected answer. “Oh, really? Last I checked, my getting you all ‘hot and bothered’ didn’t seem to _bother_ you all that much.”

“Shush.” Lorna ducked her head down, but not before Nicky caught a glance of her flushed cheeks. “No more talking.”

And then Nicky couldn’t have said a word even if she wanted to. She grasped Lorna’s hand as she felt the warmth of her tongue trace a path up between her legs. _Fuck. Shit. Christ._ Her mind scrolled through every swear word she knew (which, admittedly, was a long list) as she tried to think of a valid reason why she should tell Lorna to stop. She drew a blank.

She couldn’t help the profanities that spilled from her lips—not just profanities, but _pleas_ and _whines_ and, over and over, Lorna’s name _._ The part of her that was still afraid told her to pull away, to stop before it was too late to take it all back, but the other part of her—that wanton, hedonistic side she’d always fed with her drug habit—saw the situation with startling clarity. _This_ was her addiction; _this_ , more than even heroin, was her perfect high. She felt disconnected from reality, like she was looking at the both of them from somewhere above: Lorna’s glossy brown curls buried between Nicky’s exposed thighs, their fingers still laced tightly together, Nicky with her head thrown back and her eyes closed and her Kool-Aid red lips parted and gasping for air.

This was going to be over embarrassingly quickly. God, it felt like she’d been waiting for this for _years_. Like maybe this was what she’d been missing all along. Her rational mind—still hovering there somewhere, pushed to the edges of her consciousness by the pleasure burning through her body—told her that she was being ridiculous, that this wasn’t better than any other sex she’d ever had. It was _just sex_. That was all it was to Lorna. That was all it had to be to Nicky, because if she let herself think even for a minute that this was anything more, she’d lose her grip on the tenuous friendship between them once and for all.

The sounds Lorna was making were positively sinful, and Nicky couldn’t stop herself. With her free hand, she grabbed the back of Lorna’s head, guiding her exactly where she needed the friction.

“ _Fuck_.” She breathed out her swear word of choice in a tone akin to prayer, which she supposed was suitable considering where they were. The tension in her was rising now, up and up and up to that all too familiar cliff. She almost wanted to hold herself there, to linger in this perfect moment forever; as soon as she fell over the edge, reality would come crashing back around her. She would have to stop pretending that the hard, cold floor under her back was the softness of their marriage bed. She would have to remember not only where they were, but _what_ they were: a straight girl and the woman who would always, always be her second choice.

Right then, with Lorna’s tongue on her, Nicky believed they were more than that. Right then, with her hand pulling roughly at Lorna’s hair, she believed that she wasn’t just a mouth and a set of fingers—that _she_ , Nicky Nichols, her heart and soul and personality, were what really mattered to Lorna. This proved it, didn’t it? It wasn’t just about Lorna’s pleasure anymore.

Her hips bucked up toward Lorna’s face, out of her control, and Nicky let herself let go at last. She shuddered under the force of it, Lorna’s mouth still moving over her as the pleasure rolled through her. It felt like an eternity and an instant all at once: she could hear the near-inhuman sounds she was making, feel the way her thighs clenched tight around Lorna’s head. Her sweaty hand clutched Lorna’s, and when the pleasure faded out again, Lorna’s thumb was still there, tracing circles onto the back of her hand.

Panting, Nicky let her body go limp, eyes closed. Somehow, despite the fact that she was still missing most of her clothes, she realized she didn’t feel naked anymore.

She felt rather than saw Lorna’s hand untangle from her own, and then a soft weight settled down half on top of her. Opening her eyes, Nicky found Lorna’s face only inches from her own, a slight nervousness evident in the brunette’s furrowed eyebrows. She couldn’t help but reach out and tap Lorna lightly on the tip of the nose; the little smile that appeared on her face was instant gratification at its finest.

“So?” Lorna bit her lip. The red lipstick was almost completely gone now, the remnants of it smudged around the corners of her mouth. And God, she’d never looked more beautiful.

Nicky rolled onto her side, one hand going up to draw Lorna’s head in closer. The motion was gentle now, and so was the kiss that followed—all warm lips and soft flickers of tongue, the kind of kiss that was intended to be enjoyed all on its own rather than as foreplay. It was the kind of kiss Nicky had hesitated to give Lorna ever since that very first time they’d kissed in the chapel. Messy kisses—the kind with bitten lips and clashing tongues—were safer somehow. Less intimate. Nicky could kiss Lorna like that without feeling like she was giving too much away.

But at that moment she would have given Lorna the world if she’d known how. She kept the kiss light, innocent, _romantic_. When she pulled away, Lorna’s mouth followed hers. The disappointed little sigh that Lorna exhaled as she opened her eyes didn’t fail to make Nicky’s heart flutter.

For a moment, they were perfectly still. Then—

“Oh my god, I actually did that!” Lorna squealed, her entire face lighting up in unbridled excitement.

Nicky couldn’t help but find her enthusiasm adorable; she let out a slightly out-of-breath chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

And then they were in each other’s arms again, still less than half-clothed, only there was nothing sexual about it this time. Nicky wrapped her arms around Lorna, kissing the top of her head and treasuring the feel of her soft breathing against her chest. For a moment, they both laid there and let themselves believe that this was forever.


	5. One Hand, One Heart (Lorna)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little angst, a little fluff, and a whole lotta words! Hope you enjoy. :)

_“Now it begins, now we start: one hand, one heart.”_

It’s like a dream. Lorna had known she was back—well, Maritza had spread the word—but to see Nicky—to _really_ see her again, standing in the common room as though she’d never left—well, it’s beyond her imagination. She can feel her kneels buckle under her; it’s like the whole room is blurring, her vision collapsing to a single point: Nicky Nichols, face lighting up as she turns and sees Lorna.

And then they’re rushing toward each other and Lorna’s in her arms, and Nicky picks her up and spins her around, so carefree, and it’s almost like she’s been there all along. There are no words, nothing but pure _feeling_. She wraps her arms around Nicky’s neck and buries her face in those curls and she can feel her eyes filling with tears because my _god_ , it’s so good to have her back.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Lorna says breathlessly when CO Dixon clears his throat at them and they have to step apart.

“Guess you can’t get rid of me, kid.”

Something deep in Lorna’s chest twists at the casual term of endearment. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d missed Nicky—not just the obvious things, like how they’d spent every waking moment together or yes, the way she could always make Lorna feel mind-shatteringly wonderful—but these little things: Nicky’s smile, the way she runs her hands through her hair, the way she calls Lorna _kid_. Lorna had tried to block it out, to convince herself she didn’t need Nicky, but she can’t pretend anymore that losing Nicky hadn’t felt like a punch straight to her gut—so many days of weeping and despair and the violent fear of never seeing Nicky again buzzing through her nightmares. Now she’s hit with the emotion all over again, and it’s all she can do to keep her teary eyes from overflowing.

Lorna can’t keep her hands off her. She clings to Nicky, magnetized to her body, all the while trying to pretend she’s not falling back into Nicky’s orbit the way she always has. She nuzzles her head against Nicky’s shoulder, swirls circles onto her bicep, traces the black ink of her tattoos. The conversation around her drifts in and out of focus; even CO Dixon’s reprimands (she thinks she hears him mutter something about ‘an orgy of touching’) can’t keep her away.

Nicky’s talking animatedly to everyone else, gesticulating and posturing the way she always does, but every once in a while she sneaks a look at Lorna out of the corner of her eye. Those eyes tell Lorna the real story, more than her outward façade ever could: she’s just as happy to see Lorna again, just as desperate to be close to her as ever. Even those small glances set Lorna on fire, burning with a desire she’s quick to push to the back of her mind. She’s with Vince now. She made _vows_ ; this isn’t the same as it was with Christopher.

Lorna knows this feeling all too well; it’s something she’s been through before, that time Nicky had been sent to the SHU. Although that had been days instead of months, Lorna remembered vividly the pain in her chest when Nicky had been dragged away. She’d cried for a while, thinking of how unbearable prison life would be without her. Then she’d thrown herself into planning her wedding with fresh vigor; she’d been thinking of it less and less before, but without Nicky, what else was left? Once again, dreaming of Christopher had become her only comfort.

And then Nicky had come back and Lorna had clutched onto her like a lifeline. They’d hooked up all over every vaguely horizontal surface in Litchfield (and some vertical ones, too), so desperate to feel each other’s bodies again that they didn’t even care who saw. Before, they’d been careful—careful to stifle Lorna’s moans, careful to avoid being seen _together_ , careful to play off their little love affair as a casual thing. But after… well, that was when everything had changed. That was when Lorna had bailed, that day in the chapel when she’d realized that if she didn’t stop it then, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to.

Because there’s something about Nicky that terrifies Lorna: she’s like a storm. She blows into and out of Lorna’s life with startling swiftness. While she’s there, it’s electrifying and petrifying all at once, a whirlwind of wild sex and deep conversations and romantic gestures that they both write off as meaningless. But when she’s gone…

Lorna doesn’t know how to say it aloud, but she knows how lost she felt without Nicky by her side. And that, more than anything, is why they can’t be together. Because what does that mean for the future? She can convince herself that it’s only because she’s still in prison that she needs Nicky—that Litchfield has always been a scary place for a diminutive girl like herself—but she knows it’s not the truth. She has always floated through life looking for someone to protect her, and she had felt no less unmoored in the real world than she does here in prison.

Vinnie is a replacement, a way to fill the void that Nicky had left behind. Lorna knows it’s true, and Nicky probably will as well, once Lorna gets around to actually telling her. But he’s the only option she can take, because now that Nicky’s back and Lorna’s thinking she can never let her go again, she knows she has to. Nicky cannot be a necessary, permanent part of her life because Nicky has never been the sort of person to make promises that last a lifetime. She doesn’t understand what family means, not like Lorna does.

Because Nicky can have any girl she chooses, and she usually does. She chews them up and spits them out and walks away without a care in the world. Someday—in two weeks or two months or two years—she’ll fall back into the drugs and the sex, and she will leave Lorna alone to pick up the pieces.

Lorna’s sure it would be like that in the real world: good until Nicky spots another, prettier mark or a little bag of heroin and walks out the door. And why shouldn’t she? There are girls out in the real world who are far smarter, far more beautiful than Lorna. And Nicky has already risked it all for the drugs once. Maybe it’s unfair, but Lorna can’t let herself _need_ someone like Nicky. Not when Nicky lives her life with one foot out the door at all times.

Lorna has always craved stability. Nicky had been her rock for a while, but she’d left. She’d left _again_ , all for some stupid drug, and so Lorna had had no choice but to find Vinnie. Stability isn’t something Nicky will ever be able to give her. But Vinnie can. And that’s why Lorna has to choose him, this time and every time.

But right now, wrapped up in their closeness, she lets herself hold Nicky and think about what could have been.

~ ~ ~

It had been a spectacularly bad day.

The water in the showers had been cold, breakfast and lunch were even more disgusting than usual (no offense to Red, of course), and the van had somehow sprung a flat tire and she’d gotten told off by one of the COs even though it wasn’t her fault. And to top things off, it was fucking _Valentine’s Day._ Her first one in this godforsaken place, and naturally, she couldn’t get her mind off Christopher. God, it was pathetic.

Lorna hadn’t even joined in on the festivities in the common room. She hadn’t felt like looking at all those frilly paper hearts and white toilet-paper streamers; how could she, when she was feeling like this? So instead she’d decided to go take a shower—which had been supremely unsatisfying given the water temperature—before returning to her bunk to feel sorry for herself.

Wrapped in her towel, she rounded the corner and headed into the Suburbs, grateful that no one was in sight. They all must still be enjoying their little party. At least this way no one would see how pitiful she looked. Lorna hadn’t even bothered to wash off her makeup before getting in the shower; her mascara had run all down her cheeks, and she had just let it, feeling like some ingenue out of an old film. Oh, well. She’d fix it before dinnertime. No one had to know what a mess she was.

Entering her block, she dropped her towel and then let out a squeal, grabbing frantically at the white fabric and pulling it back over herself as she spotted someone sitting on her bed. Nicky was sprawled out as comfortably as though it were her own bunk, flipping through one of Lorna’s myriad wedding magazines; Lorna supposed she certainly spent enough time there to be this nonchalant. Boo teased them mercilessly about it, telling them to _get a fucking room, lovebirds. You’re making me wanna hurl._

“What the _fuck_ , Nichols?!” Lorna wasn’t usually one to swear—at least not in comparison to Nicky—but she felt the occasion called for it.

“Whoa there, kid.” Nicky laughed. “Now, I know I’m no supermodel, but I didn’t think I was _that_ ugly.”

“No, no, you’re fine.” Lorna was still pulling at the towel, wrapping it back around her body self-consciously.

“ _Wooow_ ,” Nicky drawled. “Really not doing anything for my self-esteem here.”

“Sorry.”

“Hey.” Nicky threw the magazine down on the bed, standing up and walking over to Lorna. She put her arm around the brunette’s shoulders, guiding her over to the bed and pulling her down so they were sitting side by side. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong? ‘Cause I’d guess, but I’m no mind reader.”

Lorna sniffled, trying to hold back the tears. “It’s really no big deal. I don’t wanna bother you.”

She’d cried into Nicky’s shoulder so many times. She felt bad about that—Nicky had always been there for her, but Lorna had never reciprocated. It was just that Nicky always seemed so strong, so invulnerable. Lorna couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry. And she was somehow—inexplicably—always willing to listen, sitting there next to Lorna with a sort of calm wisdom that never lost its comfort.

“Hey, hey, look at me, kid.” Nicky took her chin, turning Lorna’s face so she couldn’t help but stare into Nicky’s eyes. “If it matters to you, it matters to me. Alright?”

Lorna couldn’t do anything but nod, feeling a single tear slip down her cheek. She felt Nicky’s thumb brush over the moisture, wiping it away, and let herself sink into the protection of Nicky’s arms without saying another word.

She didn’t know when it had started feeling that way, but Nicky’s embrace always felt like home to Lorna. Maybe that was because Nicky was New York City embodied in a person, from the roughness of her accent to the give-no-fucks attitude to the way she swaggered around Litchfield like she owned the place. She had the same beating heart of the city, the same fierce, loud, brash exterior that hid an internal complexity you could spend a lifetime studying without really understanding. You could take the girl out of the city, but clearly there was no taking the city out of this girl.

Maybe it was just that Nicky reminded Lorna of family—of her mother’s exaggerated Brooklyn accent, of days spent wandering grimy sidewalks and avoiding all the crazies on the subway when they came to New York to visit her grandparents and cousins, the whole family cozied up together in a tiny apartment. Whatever it was, Lorna realized she didn’t care. She’d never understood just what it was about Nicky that made her feel like the endpoint to every journey, and maybe she never would. Maybe it was enough to be here, the warm strength of Nicky’s arms allowing her to forget about the harshness of her prison reality just for a little while. 

They spent an immeasurable number of minutes like that, with Nicky petting the top of Lorna’s head in a way that could’ve felt patronizing but instead felt tender. Then Lorna sat up suddenly, a thought occurring to her.

“Why are you here?”

Nicky snorted. “Sheesh, I didn’t think you’d ever ask. I, uh…” She trailed off, looking uncharacteristically unsure of herself. “You’ve been down all day, so I wanted to do something to cheer you up.”

Lorna couldn’t help the hint of a smile that curled at the edges of her mouth. “You didn’t have to do that, Nicky.”

“Sure I did.” She didn’t explain any further, just bent down and dragged something out from under the bed. It was a picnic basket, the old-fashioned wicker kind with a red-and-white checkered lining that flashed as she flipped back the lid to reveal a full picnic spread.

“But… how did you…?” Lorna’s jaw fell open as she gawked.

“Red has her ways,” Nicky said with one of her signature roguish grins. “And you’re family now, kid.”

“I—wow, Nichols, you really… thank you.”

Nicky simply ducked her head in acknowledgement, beginning to pull items out of the basket. “You should probably get dressed. Not that I’m not usually all for dinner in the buff, but it’s not exactly the mood I was going for this time.”

Lorna nodded. “Turn around.”

Nicky snorted. “Not like I haven’t seen it all before.” When Lorna shot her a dirty look, she heaved out an exaggerated sigh, turning her back. “Fine, fine.”

Making sure Nicky wasn’t sneaking a peek out of the corner of her eye, Lorna changed quickly, smoothing down the rumpled khakis in an effort to make herself look halfway presentable. “Done.”

Nicky turned back around, eyes raking up and down Lorna’s form affectionately. “Aren’t you just a vision.”

“Oh, stop it,” Lorna said, blushing just a little bit. Walking over to the opposite end of her cubicle, she quickly used a cloth to wipe away the mascara streaks on her cheeks, then pulled out her homemade lip tint, swiping a bit of the color onto her lips. Her hair was still wet and stringy, but at least she felt a little more like herself.

Turning back, she sauntered toward Nicky with an exaggerated swing to her hips. “ _Now_ you can flatter me, Nichols.”

“Gladly, my lady.” Nicky caught her by the hand, twirling her in until she was flush against Nicky’s body before dipping her down like they were one of those couples on _Dancing with the Stars._

Lorna giggled, feeling secure in Nicky’s arms and lighter than she had all day. Heart beating fast, she realized just how close they were, how easy it would be for her to wrap her arms around Nicky’s neck and pull her head down until their mouths met. She didn’t, of course; they hadn’t kissed since that first time in the chapel. Even when they were having sex—which had somehow become a common occurrence these days—Nicky always stopped just short of kissing her mouth. She’d plant kisses on Lorna’s cheek, on her breasts, on certain _other_ areas, but never right on the mouth. There had been times when Lorna had considered just laying one on her, but some part of her always hesitated, wishing Nicky would do it without her having to ask. Then Lorna wondered why it was so important to her, anyway; she told herself she liked sex with a side of intimacy, that was all. It was only part of the ritual. That was the only reason she wanted Nicky to kiss her.

In that moment, Nicky looked to be having the same sort of thoughts. Lorna could feel the blonde’s breath hitch, and for a moment she closed her eyes, half-expecting Nicky’s lips to meet hers. But then Nicky was pulling away, standing her back up on her feet, where Lorna swayed unsteadily in the sudden absence of Nicky’s soft hold.

“Anyway.” Nicky cleared her throat, gesturing at the little spread she’d made in the middle of the floor. “We should eat.”

“Yeah, o’course.” Lorna settled herself down on the hard concrete floor across from Nicky, unable to resist letting out a little hum of contentment.

“I know it’s not anything fancy,” Nicky was saying, passing Lorna a can of Minute Maid lemonade, “but, you know, I just thought—”

“It’s perfect,” Lorna interrupted, letting her hand linger over Nicky’s on the can. “I still don’t know _how_ you managed to pull this off, but Nicky… it really is perfect.”

“It’s nothing.” Nicky still managed to look rather pleased with herself, although Lorna could tell she was trying to downplay her satisfaction. “Just, you know. Something I’d do for any of my friends.”

Lorna wasn’t sure whether that meant actual friends or friends-with-benefits or lovers or even girlfriends, and which one _were_ they, after all? It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered what this was all supposed to mean; she might have been oblivious sometimes, but Lorna certainly wasn’t stupid. When Nicky did these things for her, what did she expect? And an even more unanswerable question—what did _Lorna_ want?

She couldn’t think about that, not now; not with Christopher and Valentine’s and the rotten day she’d been having. She didn’t have the answers to any of her problems. What she did know was that this moment was _theirs_ —fuck Christopher. He wasn’t here, was he? It was Nicky in front of her, Nicky with those untamed curls and those earnest eyes and those cuffed shirtsleeves on the khaki shirt Lorna really shouldn’t have been thinking of stripping off her.

So she didn’t ask for clarification. Instead, setting down the lemonade, Lorna leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Nicky’s cheek. The little lipstick smudge she left behind nearly matched the blush highlighting Nicky’s face as the curly-haired woman ducked her head, looking absolutely _bashful_ for the first time Lorna could remember.

“Don’t you go getting all sappy on me here, Morello.” Nicky’s voice was still full of swagger, but her eyes betrayed her true feelings. “Come on, you gonna eat or what?”

They talked and laughed as they ate, the conversation flowing as naturally between them as it always did. Lorna could feel the weight being lifted from her shoulders as she relaxed into the banter; suddenly all of the day’s little tragedies didn’t seem so important anymore. For a moment, she felt a wave of gratitude wash over her—prison sucked, it was just a fact, but without it she’d never have had this moment. Without it, she’d never have met Nicky.

“So…” Nicky said after they’d absolutely demolished the little plate of food. “I wanted to give you something.”

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a little pink paper in the shape of a heart. It was folded in half and edged with fake paper lace, and Lorna’s name was scrawled across it in Nicky’s handwriting.

“It’s silly,” she said, handing it to Lorna, “but they were making them in the common room, so, you know, I figured why not.”

“You’re a regular hopeless romantic, Nicky Nichols,” Lorna declared, taking the card.

Hands raised in mock surrender, Nicky looked everywhere but straight at Lorna’s face. “I plead the fifth.”

Lorna made as if to open the card, but Nicky reached out, stopping her before she could unfold it. “Read it later, alright?”

“Sure, okay.” Lorna nodded, slipping it underneath her pillow and out of sight. “So, what’d you wanna do now?”

“Well…” Nicky had a crafty little smile on her face. “Close your eyes.”

Doing as she was told, Lorna closed her eyes and felt Nicky’s hand come up to cup her cheek, brushing her still-damp hair back behind her ear. Butterflies swarmed her stomach; she thought—well, _hoped_ might’ve been a better word—the next sensation she’d feel was the warmth of Nicky’s lips, but instead she felt Nicky slip an earbud into her ear.

_“Make of our hands one hand, make of our hearts one heart…”_

Lorna’s eyes popped open. “It’s _West Side Story_!”

Nicky had the other earbud in, still kneeling with her hand on Lorna’s cheek; letting it trail down the side of her face, she tipped Lorna’s chin up towards her. “May I have this dance, Miss Morello?”

“Of course.”

Nicky reached out, taking Lorna’s hand and pulling her to her feet. She drew Lorna in close, mumbling something about how the cord wasn’t that long. It was a blatant excuse, but Lorna didn’t mind; wrapping her arms around Nicky’s neck, she laid her head against Nicky’s chest and swayed with her slowly. There was no space between them now; Nicky’s hands were on Lorna’s hips, drawing them flush against each other.

Shifting her head, Lorna leaned back so she could look Nicky in the eyes. They smiled at each other for a long moment, and then Lorna stood up on her toes and pressed another kiss to the very corner of Nicky’s mouth, just missing her lips. She could feel Nicky’s body react, feel the short little breath she inhaled and the way her thumb slipped under Lorna’s shirt just below her waist to draw hypnotizing strokes against the skin there. It was intoxicating, knowing she had this effect on Nicky.

“ _Lorna_ …”

Lorna could hear the need in Nicky’s voice, and she almost gave in. She wanted it too, that was the thing. But not now. Right now, she knew that skin-on-skin contact would only make Nicky more distant. They would be laid bare in a physical way, but Nicky’s eyes would be guarded; her kisses would land everywhere but where Lorna most wanted. Right now, all Lorna craved was this innocent closeness, this quiet intimacy between them.

“Later,” she said. “I promise.”

Nicky just nodded.

Lorna closed her eyes and let the music sweep her away, her head filling with a million dreams she knew would never come true. But why not imagine?

She was a princess—she was Belle from _Beauty and the Beast,_ dancing in a magical castle. Lorna remembered when that movie had come out. She hadn’t even been ten years old, and she’d been to see it with Franny and then loved it so much she’d begged for her mother to let her see it all over again. That Halloween, she’d dressed up as Belle in a yellow gown her mother had sewn for her, a dollar store plastic tiara perched on top of her carefully curled brown hair. She’d been so excited, prancing around the halls and down the streets until stupid Bianca Fontana from school had wrinkled up her nose at the homemade costume. Lorna had ripped it off and thrown it down on the floor the minute she got home, then sobbed into Franny’s arms while her sister said it was _gonna be alright, Lo, those bitches don’t know what they’re talking ab—_ here their mother had interjected— _language, Francine!_

Dancing with Nicky, she felt the magic of that day all over again, only this time there were no spiteful schoolgirls to ruin it for her. Her gown swished around her high-heeled feet, her steps skimming gracefully over the polished floors of the ballroom as she twirled around. Stars glittered through the delicate glass of the vaulted ceiling, shining their light on the happy couple down below.

And Nicky—oh, Nicky looked absolutely radiant. She was dressed in a classic suit, complete with a starched white shirt and a tux tailored to hug all her curves. As they danced, Lorna reached up to straighten her slightly off-kilter bowtie. Her hair was swept up into a bun on top of her head, and her lapel was adorned with a single red rose.

A gold wedding band glistened on Nicky’s left hand where their fingers intertwined as she led them through a waltz; Lorna couldn’t see her own, obscured beneath her long gloves, but she smiled, knowing it was there. She felt like Belle all over again, dancing with this wonderful, miraculous creature who was nothing like what she’d expected and yet—somehow—everything she’d never known she needed.

And then the song was over, and Lorna let out a dreamy sigh, reluctantly opening her eyes. The cinderblock walls faded back in around her, but she still felt grounded by Nicky’s hands on her waist, tempting her to slip back into fantasy again.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Lorna just hummed happily, tracing a little heart into the skin on the back of Nicky’s neck and enjoying the feeling of being so close to her.

When Nicky’s hands fell away from her waist, Lorna had to keep herself from audibly expressing disappointment at the loss of contact. But Nicky was bending down now, shuffling around in the bottom of the picnic basket before pulling out a long-stemmed red rose and presenting it to Lorna with a flourish.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Lorna.”

Lorna wanted so badly to kiss her in that moment. She couldn’t think of a thing to say, so she settled for taking the rose and then throwing herself into Nicky’s arms, bowling into her so hard that they both stumbled back a step.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” she mumbled against Nicky’s shoulder.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Lorna stepped backward, releasing Nicky from her tight embrace.

Nicky stood there for a long second, just looking at her as though she wanted to say something more. Then she cleared her throat, running a hand through her mop of hair and pushing it back from her face. “Well, uh, I promised Red I’d help her out with something in the kitchen.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” Lorna said, feeling like she wanted to do _something_ , but not quite sure where to start. “I’ll see you later?”

“Naw, I think I’ll plan a jailbreak,” Nicky joked as she closed the gap between them. Taking Lorna’s head gently in her hands, she planted a kiss in the middle of her forehead. “See ya around, kid.”

And then she was picking up the picnic basket, gone in a flurry of wayward curls before Lorna could say another word. The cube felt empty without her, almost like the air had been sucked out; Lorna sat down on her bunk, wondering when Nicky had begun feeling so _necessary_ to her.

Shifting to lay down, she pulled out Nicky’s note from under her pillow. She stared up at the drab ceiling for a minute, rose in one hand, opposite thumb tracing around the edges of the pink paper. For some reason, she couldn’t quite bring herself to open it. Lorna didn’t know exactly what she was so afraid of, but her mind was whirling just thinking about it, trying to untangle all the twisted threads of her emotions buried somewhere deep down inside.

She’d always wanted a Valentine’s Day like this. She’d always wanted someone to buy her flowers, take her to a romantic dinner, slow dance with her to all their favorite songs. All through high school she’d hoped and dreamed and cut out pictures from magazines, pasting them in her journal and imagining the perfect prince to sweep her off her feet.

None of this was anything like she’d imagined. For one thing, she was in prison, which wasn’t exactly a rom-com-worthy setting. For another, Nicky wasn’t exactly a prince charming in any sense of the word. This wasn’t a fairytale.

Christopher… well, Christopher _was_ the fairytale. He was everything Lorna had ever fantasized about. Christopher was the sort of person she could take home to her parents, the sort of person she could walk down the aisle with and exchange vows with and live a long, happy, uncomplicated life with. He was the Tony to her Maria, only hopefully with less dying and gangs involved.

Who would she and Nicky even be? Ellen and Portia? But they weren’t even a fairytale, they were real, and there was nothing romantic about that. Every movie Lorna had ever seen had been the same: boy meets girl, boy flirts with girl, boy falls in love with girl. They live happily-ever-after. There was no ‘girl meets girl,’ not in Lorna’s Italian Catholic family.

Lorna knew, though, that what she and Nicky had was good. Girl had met girl; girl had flirted with girl, and now it was feeling uncomfortably as if girl was beginning to fall in love with girl. And that terrified Lorna. Because how could this be so good when it was so _wrong_?

She almost couldn’t admit to herself that this had probably been the most romantic Valentine’s Day she’d ever had, and she’d spent it with a woman. Because whatever Nicky said, Lorna knew this wasn’t some spur-of-the moment plan designed to cheer her up. Between the picnic and the rose and the card and music, Nicky must have been planning this day for weeks.

Was Nicky in love with her?

Was Lorna in lo—but no, she couldn’t be.

Dropping the rose on her chest, Lorna finally opened the card.

_Dear Lorna,_

_I’m not exactly a poet, so I just wanted to say: prison really is a shithole, but it’s better when you have someone to share it with._

_Happy Valentine’s Day, kid._

_Love,_

_Nicky_

Somehow, despite herself, Lorna couldn’t stop herself from smiling at that one little word, signed so casually: _love_.

~ ~ ~

“Oh no, what’re _they_ doing here?” Lorna says, catching sight of the meth-heads across the room. She and Nicky are standing next to the foosball table as the party goes on around them; Lorna’s still trying to pretend she’s not doing everything in her power to keep touching Nicky at every moment. Her hands are hooked in Nicky’s waistband, anchoring them together; it’s all too easy for them to slip back into the same sort of intimacy they had before Nicky left.

“It’s the common room,” Nicky says. “Now, you can’t keep out the commoners.”

“Well, we don’t have to give ‘em cake.” The results of Lorna and Suzanne’s recent shower investigation aren’t far from her mind. “Dirty shower pooper.”

When Sister Ingalls and Gloria walk over, Lorna is quick to drop her hands from Nicky’s waist, instead toying with the grey sweatshirt tied around her shoulders. These touches are only for them—no need to get the rest of the prison talking about something that’s not even true. Because she and Nicky are _not_ back together; they never will be. Lorna’s married. Why does it seem like such an effort to keep reminding herself of that?

The other two are here to discuss Sophia, of course, and while Lorna’s certainly concerned about her—all ingrained prejudices aside, she knows as well as the next woman that Burset isn’t at fault for what’s happened to her—she’s more worried about Nicky. She doesn’t want her thinking any more about her time at Max.

“Okay, come on,” Lorna says, taking her hand and dragging Nicky away. “Come dance with me.”

_It can be just like before_ , she thinks. _Just like that Valentine’s Day over a year ago when we held each other and danced and I thought my heart might explode from how much I wanted you._ She can’t say any of that aloud.

But Nicky drops her hand, pulls away. “Just give me one second, alright? I’ll be right back.”

And how many times has she said that? How many times will Nicky walk out of her life without even glancing over her shoulder? First the SHU, then Max. All those other girls she’d fucked in that stupid fucking contest with Boo. Each one had felt like a shot right to Lorna’s heart. It’s no different this time as Nicky leaves the party with Angie—that meth-head shower pooper, of all people!—and Lorna is helpless to do anything but watch her disappear again.


	6. Habits [Stay High] (Nicky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Happy Valentine's Day. I'm afraid this isn't exactly fluffy Valentine's Day fare, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Let me know what you think in the comments. :)

_“You’re gone, and I gotta stay high all the time to keep you off my mind.”_

Nicky leaves the visitation room shaking. Her hands quiver; she balls them into fists at her side, wishing she wasn’t giving the COs the satisfaction of seeing her like this. Chest heaving, she blinks back the tears from her eyes before they can fall down her cheeks. The inside of her mouth tastes like iron, but she doesn’t even feel the pain of her teeth digging into the soft flesh on the inside of her lip.

She’s beginning to understand the meaning of the phrase “seeing red”—the anger burning up inside her is all-consuming. But lashing out has never really been Nicky’s style. Marka had been right about that, at least; there is something deeply, _deeply_ fucked up about her. Something irredeemable, unfixable. She wants to hurt something _so bad_ , but all she can think about is the drugs. All she can think to do is self-destruct, the way she always does.

 _Fuck it_ , she thinks. Because what’s left now? What was the purpose of Luschek coming to visit other than to remind her, once again, that this is all her fault? Everything she’s ever lost in her life… well, if it hadn’t been for that self-destructive itch always tugging at her heart, none of this would have ever happened. She’s not like the other women in Litchfield. It’s not like she was set up to fail from the start. Nicky knows that she has been so lucky, that she had had _everything_ —the fancy private schools and the exotic vacations and the dollar bills she threw at drug dealers and pole-dancing women in an effort to fill the hole inside her heart. Because yes, she’d had everything. Everything but what she’d _really_ wanted, which was simply for her parents to pay some fucking attention to her. To act like maybe, just maybe, they gave a shit about the curly-haired little girl they’d brought into the world.

Nicky doesn’t understand it, not to this day. Why even have children if you only intend to throw them to the side, cast them off when you find something better to do with your life? It’s why Nicky has never wanted them herself—she’s certain she’d fuck up just as bad as Marka had done with her. Maybe worse. No, Nicky’s not destined to have a happily-ever-after; she’d probably find some way to self-sabotage even if the opportunity ever did come along, she thinks bitterly.

That night is when she finally breaks. She knows where to get the heroin. Like she’d said to Luschek, drugs aren’t exactly in short supply in this place. And hey, it isn’t like she even has to suck a dick to do it. She says a tiny, ironic prayer to a deity she’s not sure she believes in— _thank god for morally-grey female COs with lesbian tendencies._ Heroin and women—Nicky’s two addictions, colliding in a perfect tsunami that threatens to pull her under for the last time.

Neither action gives her any pleasure, just relief. The heroin is good enough as a chaser for the sex—if it can even be called sex. Nicky prefers to think of it as a transaction.

Before long, with the heroin in her system, she doesn’t think of it at all.

~ ~ ~

“Does it fucking _matter_ , Morello?” Nicky was pacing back and forth, hands thrown up in frustration. “I just don’t see why—”

“No, you don’t!” A judgmental glare from one of the other inmates passing by made Lorna lower her voice into a quiet but still venomous hiss. “You don’t get to tell me what _my_ fiancé is thinking because _you_ don’t know him!”

“That’s rich. Sure, I may not know your _daaarling_ Christopher,” Nicky drawled, “but I do know that he never even visits you. I mean, come on, even _you’re_ not batshit enough to believe that he’s still gonna be around when you get out!”

“I’m the love of his life, I know he’ll wait.” Lorna was trying to keep her voice calm, but Nicky could hear her tone teetering on the edge of panic. “Maybe you just don’t understand what true love is like.”

“True love’s for suckers,” Nicky spat. “You’re just too fucking _blind_ to see what’s right in front of you.”

“You’re just sore because you don’t wanna stop having sex with me!”

Lorna had tears in the corners of her eyes, but Nicky couldn’t bring herself to back down now.

“You really think that’s what this is about?” She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I could have any girl in here I wanted, you’re not _that_ good of a lay.”

“Yeah? Well, then, why don’t you?!” Lorna gave Nicky a pathetic shove, all five-feet-zero-inches of her boiling with indignation.

“Maybe I will!”

“Fine!”

*

Lorna was sitting across from her at the dinner table; she didn’t raise her eyes from her food as she spoke, preferring instead to arch an eyebrow at the unappetizing mush on her plate.

“So how many women you slept with today, Nichols?” The question was innocent, but Lorna’s tone was clearly a challenge.

Nicky scoffed. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“That’s code for exactly Z-E-R-O,” Big Boo butted in, elbowing Nicky in the side.

Nicky scowled. “Yeah, which is the same number of fucks I give about what you think.”

Lorna was still studiously refusing to make eye contact as she trailed the tines of her fork across her tray. “I thought you said you could have any woman you wanted.”

 _Except you,_ Nicky thought, and then internally slapped herself across the face for thinking it. “Well, maybe I don’t want any women today.”

“ _Pfft._ ” Boo burst out laughing, then schooled her expression into one of exaggerated surprise. “Nicky Nichols giving up on dykedom? What alien planet are we living on?”

“You can both go fuck yourselves,” Nicky muttered, pushing her tray back and standing up. “I’m outta here.”

“Hey, I think _you’re_ the one that’s gonna need to fuck yourself!” Boo called after her, clearly pleased at her own cleverness. Turning back to the table, she shrugged her shoulders. “You not gonna go after her, Morello?”

“What Nichols does is none of my business,” Lorna said primly.

“Bullshit. It’s only a matter of time before you two are going at it again.”

At the other end of the cafeteria, Nicky dumped her tray and sauntered out through the doors. She could feel Lorna’s eyes on her back; taking a deep breath in, she forced herself to keep her head firmly facing forward. No looking back.

She marched her way right down to the chapel. It wasn’t like she was religious, exactly. More spiritual, if she had to put a label on it. The point was, the chapel was generally abandoned during the day, except for her frequent trysts with Lorna. Although those were over now, she thought bitterly, probably for good. She could go down to the chapel and hide underneath the pulpit and finally find some peace and quiet in this godforsaken place.

Pushing the door open, Nicky was grateful to find the chapel empty. She crossed the room and huddled up behind the pulpit, closing her eyes and letting the colored light stream through the stained-glass windows onto her cheeks. Several deep breaths in and out later—she could attribute that skill to Yoga Jones—she felt much calmer.

And then she heard the door open. Whoever came in did so quietly—and there was none of the telltale giggling that signified a couple coming to get it on—but Nicky still cursed under her breath. She really, really wasn’t in the mood.

The footsteps approached slowly, cautiously, and then Lorna’s head was poking around the corner of the pulpit.

Nicky couldn’t help the irritation in her voice. “The fuck are you doing here.” It wasn’t even a question.

“Oh, don’t be like that.”

“Like _what_?” Nicky growled.

“Nicky, baby…”

“Don’t you dare ‘baby’ me right now, Lorna.”

Lorna nodded, biting her lip, then gestured to the floor beside Nicky. “Can I sit?”

She took Nicky’s non-committal shrug as an invitation. With a little sigh, Lorna sat down next to Nicky, close beside her the way they usually sat. But Nicky flinched away; she couldn’t touch Lorna right now. Their closeness always had to be on Lorna’s terms, and Nicky was tired of it. She was tired of the fact that it was somehow okay for her to fuck Lorna, to see her most intimate places, but she couldn’t so much as hold her hand without Lorna fleeing the scene.

God, and she’d _known_ this was a bad idea from the very start. Even before the first time they’d slept together, Nicky had known her feelings for Lorna were dangerous. She’d known that having sex with her would only seal the deal. Of course Lorna would never reciprocate, not the way she wanted, anyway. But Nicky had let herself do it regardless. And now look at her… it had been a full two weeks since Lorna had ended things, and Nicky was still a fucking mess.

“Can we just talk?” Lorna’s voice was quiet, pleading. Her big brown eyes were fixed on Nicky’s with something close to desperation. “I miss you.”

“Oh, really?” There was a cruel edge to Nicky’s tone.

“Yes, really.”

“How much?”

Lorna frowned. “What?”

“How much did you miss me?”

“I don’t—” Lorna began to say, but Nicky cut her off.

Turning to face her, Nicky aggressively pulled Lorna’s mouth against her own. The kiss was feverish, desperate. Lorna gave a little yelp of surprise as Nicky’s fingers twisted roughly through her hair, but then she leaned into the kiss, moaning into Nicky’s mouth as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. Nicky could taste the waxy flavor of Lorna’s lipstick, feel the way Lorna’s breathing quickened. She pulled back, dragging her teeth across Lorna’s bottom lip and leaving the brunette panting.

“I said, how much did you miss me?”

Nicky could see something primal flickering in Lorna’s eyes and felt a stab of satisfaction when Lorna whispered, “So much.”

“Prove it,” Nicky murmured, capturing Lorna’s lips again. She felt Lorna’s hands come up to cup her cheek; the gesture felt almost romantic, so Nicky pulled away. If all Lorna wanted was the sex, then that was all she would get.

“Nicky…” The way Lorna whimpered her name was enough to make Nicky want to let out a moan of her own, but she resisted the urge.

“Tell me what you want.”

“ _You_ ,” Lorna gasped.

It was manipulative. Nicky knew it was, and yet she couldn’t help herself. She slid her hand down the front of Lorna’s body and into her pants. “Say it again.”

“You, Nicky.” Lorna’s breath was ragged already. “I want you.”

It didn’t take Nicky long to bring her to climax. She’d had a lot of practice, after all; it wasn’t like these last two weeks had made her any less in tune with Lorna’s body.

“Sounds like you missed me a lot,” she said as soon as Lorna had regained her breath.

The brunette didn’t respond. There was a thoughtful, faraway look in her eyes; Nicky just watched her for a long moment. She didn’t know if what she felt for Lorna was tenderness or hatred, whether she wanted to kiss her again or to watch those perfect, pouty lips screw up into a pathetic little grimace as the tears fell freely down her cheeks. The knot in Nicky’s chest wound itself up even tighter, twisting as painfully and restlessly as heartburn.

Then Lorna shifted, straightening herself up against the pulpit and turning to face Nicky. “Do you blame me?”

“What?”

“For wanting a real relationship.”

The air in the room felt suddenly hollow, every last molecule of oxygen sucked out of Nicky’s lungs. She wanted to be angry, but when she opened her mouth to speak, she found that the rage burning through her body had been extinguished. Only sorrow, twisting like acrid smoke, was left behind. She could feel it sting her eyes, but she refused to let herself tear up.

It was just so fucking unfair, wasn’t it? Nicky had made all these gestures—the lipstick, the days spent cuddled up with her in the common room, even the fucking Valentine’s Day picnic—and yet Lorna couldn’t see it. She would never be able to see it the way Nicky did.

Maybe she really was just that oblivious. That was what Nicky wanted to think, but she was sure even Lorna Morello couldn’t be that blind. Funny, wasn’t it, how Lorna could believe in fairytales and still think that what she and Nicky had together wasn’t fucking _real_.

Nicky wanted to shout it at her. At least then she’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lorna knew what she felt, knew how much of a hold she had on Nicky’s heart and still didn’t give a fuck. Maybe it would be better that way. At least then there wouldn’t be hope.

But Nicky was weak. If she said anything, Lorna would run. And if Lorna ran… well, the last two weeks had been as close to hell on earth as anything she’d experienced, short of withdrawal. Saying anything _real_ would only mean wasting her breath and losing even the little part of Lorna she was still holding onto.

So instead, Nicky just chuckled, her breath stirring up the tendrils of Lorna’s brown bob as she lied through her teeth. “Of course I don’t blame you, kid.”

~ ~ ~

“Hey, there,” Lorna says, and Nicky forces herself to look up at her. “You’re really being a bit of a downer.”

Oh, and isn’t that rich? “I’m sorry,” Nicky says, trying to keep her voice level, “is my mood not up to your standards? No one asked you to plop yourself down right in front of me.”

She has no patience for this, not anymore. Everything has finally begun to sink in. Nothing is the way it had been before. Before they’d taken her to Max, she’d had a family. She’d had her sobriety, her sanity, her confidence. She’d had Lorna—maybe not in all the ways she’d wanted, but even so. They had been together.

And then Lorna had had to go and get _married_ while she’d been gone.

“I’m sitting here ‘cause we’re all friends,” Lorna is saying with maybe a touch of impatience in her tone, and Nicky can’t help but scoff.

“O-kaay, is that what we are now?”

As though Lorna hadn’t shouted that ‘ _I love you, too’_ when they’d been hauling Nicky down to Max. It had been a shitty situation, but hearing those words had given Nicky so much comfort during those lonely nights. There had been some dark days, but she could always talk herself down from the ledge. _Just survive until the end of your sentence, then you can find Lorna. Then everything will be alright._ And now—what? Three months and one generic Italian man later and all that has been erased? They’re just fucking _friends_ again, the way Lorna has always wanted.

Lorna is looking at her with something akin to sympathy. “You need to stop blaming me for finding someone, hon.”

And _god,_ if that little term of endearment doesn’t just burn. She can’t even formulate a proper response. “Mm-hmm.”

“It’s not like my feelings for you just went away.”

Nicky’s head is whirling; she’s not sure if it’s the drugs or the fact that Lorna has actually used the word “feelings” in reference to their relationship, because that’s gotta be a first. But she can’t bring herself to feel the little glow of triumph she should feel at hearing Lorna say it. Instead, Nicky lets her anger take the reins. 

“But _I_ didn’t just jump into the first pair of Mookee pants that came along.”

“I have no idea what you did, but you sure as fuck did something,” Lorna says, “because you can’t keep your head up right now.”

“Don’t try to change the subject, okay?” Nicky makes a little sound of disgust. She’s trying to understand, but her brain isn’t working right and she’s so furious and betrayed and heartbroken and—“It’s been, like, months, and how do you even _meet_ someone, let alone get _married_ —”

“Okay, stop. Stop it! Stop it.” The look in Lorna’s eyes is wild; her voice betrays her anger, and Nicky gets a little swell of satisfaction at the reaction she’s finally getting. “ _You_ left. _You_ were the one who left, alright? I didn’t know if you were coming back. And it’s your fault, because you love heroin more than you love me!”

That one hits Nicky where it hurts. “For your information, I was clean at the time,” she grinds out through gritted teeth, “you peanut-brained, fickle-hearted _whore_.”

Lorna’s shocked, slightly hurt expression doesn’t give her any pleasure. And then Red’s there, hovering over the table, and Nicky doesn’t know what to do with herself. She rolls her eyes, sticks her tongue out, hardly aware of her own emotions and even less aware of her physical body.

And then Lorna stands up and says, “She’s on drugs, Red,” and Nicky rolls her eyes and says, “Oh, God,” because really, what should Lorna care? Why should any of them care? Nicky has come back and Lorna’s married and Piper’s suddenly a white supremacist and Red’s pretending like she can’t see that Nicky’s about to go under for the last time, and really, why does it matter? Fuck all this shit. She’s done.

“What, are we all gonna pretend this isn’t happening?” Lorna asks.

Nicky stands. She doesn’t even pick up her tray, just turns and walks aimlessly out of the cafeteria without another word.

She wanders for a while before she ends up in the chapel. She doesn’t go to sit behind the pulpit this time; there are too many memories there to haunt her, and what Nicky wants to do right now is forget. Instead, she takes a seat in the third row, closes her eyes, and lets everything wash over her.

It’s strange. She should feel good—that’s what the drugs are supposed to do, after all—but all she feels is empty. And isn’t it ironic. Her mind is hazy, and yet everything is so much clearer than it used to be.

_It’s not like my feelings for you just went away._

Lorna knows. She knows Nicky loves her and at least some part of her loves Nicky back. And now it’s just too late because of Max and the heroin and Vincent-fucking-Muccio, and Nicky knows she’s fucked up but doesn’t know how she can fix anything because it’s too damn late for that. She drops her head into her hands and wishes she could cry because she knows why Lorna can admit it now when she couldn’t before. It should feel like a victory, but it doesn’t.

Lorna can finally admit that her feelings are real because she won’t have to follow through anymore. Because she’s fucking _married._ So even if she says she loves Nicky now, it will be hollow. It won’t count. _I-love-you-too_ isn’t a promise anymore because Lorna’s given herself to Vinnie, and somehow that erases all her history with Nicky, makes her into Lorna’s first-and-only-girl-crush, nothing more. She’s a footnote in Lorna’s sexual playbook now. But it’s not about the sex—with Lorna, it never had been just about the sex, and that’s what stings the most.

_You’re really telling me you didn’t miss me at all?_

Nicky remembers the first time she’d asked that question, the way she’d made Lorna answer it. Lorna had given in so easily back then.

_Of course I missed you. But that was because I was worried about you._

This time it hadn’t worked. This time, Nicky had leaned in and told her she was there, she was the one who could touch her, she was the one who could make her feel good. And Lorna had turned away.

_Vinnie and I, we have a future._

As though it’s not just the same fairytale bullshit as Christopher all over again. God, it’s always like this, it always has been like this. Nicky imagines Vincent swaggering into the visitation room. She imagines the way Lorna’s face lights up when she sees him for the first time, the way those brown eyes fill with a kind of curious hope. She watches Lorna fall into his arms, closes her eyes and pictures their wedding-day kiss. She hopes it was as romantic as Lorna had always dreamed it would be.

Lorna can’t have met him more than a handful of times. And yet somehow, it’s Vinnie she has a future with. Not Nicky—not the person who had held her on the stairs that day after Christopher had come to visit, the person who had made her Valentine’s Day dreams come true, the person who had been there for her from the very beginning. It’s Nicky who knows Lorna better than anyone else, the only person who knows all the twists of her beautiful, crazy mind and has never once held it against her. And Lorna has seen Nicky at her worst and still managed to stay at her side. They’re all kinds of fucked up together, but at least they’re not as fucked up as they are when they’re on their own.

Nicky has told Lorna so many times, in so many ways, that she loves her. But no, none of that is fucking real enough for Lorna Morello to imagine they could ever have a future together.

Nicky can feel the tears at the corner of her eyes, and she lets them fall this time. There’s no one here to see. Lorna’s married, and Nicky doesn’t want it to feel real. So she does what she has always done best: she leaves the chapel in search of her next high.


	7. Ain't Together (Lorna)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry it's been so long... as I'm sure y'all know, the world has been crazy lately. But this story is by no means abandoned, and as I'll be staying home most of the time now, I'm going to have a lot more time to write.  
> Please stay safe and wash your hands LOTS. Hope this chapter helps get us all through the quarantine! Please let me know what you think. :)

_“We say I love you, but we ain’t together.”_

They’re the perfect team. But of course, Lorna had known that already. The riot is scary, but running the pharmacy with Nicky makes Lorna feel normal, sinking back into the effortlessness of their dynamic as though things haven’t been tense between them lately. It’s controlled chaos—Lorna’s at the window, wearing the lab coat that makes her feel oh-so official, just another kind of playing pretend. Nicky’s in the back, handling the actual drugs with an ease that can only have come from hours of staring at her mother’s well-stocked medicine cabinet, deciding which drug to try next. The junkie philosopher has become a junkie pharmacist, and Lorna has to say, it suits her.

Nicky has always been at her best when she’s helping other people, and now her drug knowledge has a purpose beyond self-destruction. Lorna could see her doing this job in another life—what a different life that would be!—with a lab coat of her own and a nametag that says _Nicole Nichols, pharmacy technician_. But right now, in this life, she’s just as Lorna likes her: cuffed sleeves on khaki uniform, hair wild, mascara overapplied so she looks a bit like a raccoon. She’s even cuffed the ankles of her pant legs, as though she hadn’t looked gay enough to begin with. It’s ridiculous, but Lorna finds it endearing.

Lorna’s dispensing the drugs, and she’s really not _trying_ to eavesdrop, but it’s just that Soso’s in the back talking to Nicky, and she has to admit she’s a little curious. She’s never quite been able to pin down that girl; maybe it’s that she’s Asian, and therefore different from anyone else in the prison (well, except Chang, but frankly, Lorna’s a little bit scared of her) or maybe it’s the fact that she can’t seem to shut up for two seconds. Or maybe it’s something else.

Maybe Soso reminds Lorna a little bit of herself.

Lorna knows that Brook had slept with Nicky, too. Oh, yes, of course she knows, because _that_ particular event had happened back in the days of Nicky’s very public fuck-contest with Boo, and Brook Soso had been one of the many girls Nicky had made scream in the chapel (and the showers… and the bunks… and god only knew where else) during those few days. Lorna also knows what, exactly, Nicky had done to shut her up, because of course Soso hadn’t stopped babbling about it after the fact. _That’s_ what really makes her jealous, though she’ll never admit it. Because Nicky had been so shy about the first time she’d let Lorna touch her that way, and Lorna had thought for a moment she might be special. And then Nicky had gone off and let fucking _Mulan_ , with her big Disney princess eyes and her loud-fucking-mouth, go down on her as though it meant nothing.

Then, of course, Soso had started dating that black girl, the one who’d died—what was her name? something French-sounding? Lorna can never remember—and it had made Lorna get to thinking. Maybe Nicky had been the gateway drug for Soso, too; maybe there’s just something about Nicky that makes the straight girls turn gay. Not that Lorna is gay or anything. She’s not like Soso—she hasn’t even looked at any other girl that way, only Nicky. For some reason, Nicky is different. For some reason—even though Lorna knows she shouldn’t, especially now that she’s married—Lorna _wants_ Nicky in a way she doesn’t want anyone else. So she flirts, teases, then rebuffs Nicky’s advances just before anything can really happen. She knows it’s not fair; she knows it’ll get her into trouble someday, when the temptation to take it too far wins out, but she doesn’t care. Lorna feeds her desire a little bit at a time, always holding back the most important parts of herself. 

So yes, she’s curious about what Soso has to say to Nicky. But Nicky must not know Lorna’s listening— _or she does and just doesn’t care_ , Lorna thinks in a daze—because her next words are strikingly honest, unguarded in a way that’s uncharacteristic of her. Well, uncharacteristic now. She used to be like this with Lorna all the time, but ever since Lorna had ended things… she realizes only now that it wasn’t just the sex that had disappeared. Nicky’s vulnerability had gone, too.

“Nah, you’re gonna get addicted to heroin,” Nicky is saying, making the words sound casual somehow, “get sent down to Max for doing some stupid junkie shit, find yourself sucking off a CO in a closet for one last hit, and, you know, maybe realize that you were just hopelessly in love with an incredible, insane, beautiful woman who’s never going to love you back.”

She pauses, and Lorna swears she’s waiting for a reaction, but that’s impossible, how could she know Lorna’s even listening, and then—

“It is just not worth it,” Nicky concludes.

Lorna is glad she’s facing away from Nicky, because she can’t disguise the tremor that twinges through her entire body like an electric shock. Her face drops, features blank; she doesn’t even know what she’s saying to the ‘patient’ in front of her, but she soldiers on, determined to pretend everything is normal.

_…hopelessly in love…_

It’s not like she doesn’t know it already. This doesn’t have to change anything.

_…incredible, insane, beautiful woman…_

She knows that, too; Vinnie tells her all the time over the phone or during visitation how beautiful she is. Still, hearing it from Nicky’s lips makes her glow a little inside.

_…never going to love you back…_

It’s this last bit that Lorna doesn’t know what to do with. Because she does love Nicky back. Or does she?

Sometimes Lorna is _so sure_ of how she feels. But then… Nicky has been so different ever since she’d come back from Max. Lorna is different now, too. She’d loved Nicky before, but now…

Maybe it’s lust. Maybe it’s that they’re in prison and Nicky has always been right about one thing: Lorna _does_ need to be touched. Maybe it’s just that she loves Nicky like a best friend. Maybe she just needs a prison wife.

Lorna knows she loves Vinnie. Vinnie is everything she’s ever wanted: he is steady, loyal, protective. He calls her silly little pet names and he’s a champion dirty talker and he’s even Italian, and what could be better than that? When she looks at Vinnie, Lorna feels warm inside. That’s what love is supposed to feel like.

Her feelings for Nicky are nothing like that, so how can that be love, too? It’s painful, almost, the way she feels when they’re together. Everything inside of her screams that it’s a bad idea, but then they kiss and they touch and Nicky holds her and that pain dulls to a throbbing ache, a longing. It’s in those moments that Lorna forgets how she thought she could ever live without Nicky. She always returns, like a moth to a flame, knowing this relationship might destroy her in the end but somehow wanting it anyway.

And she knows she’d said it: _‘I love you, too.’ ‘It’s not like my feelings for you just went away.’_ But things are different now. She’s a married woman, she made _vows_. Looking at Nicky Nichols makes her want to break every one of them, but she can’t; she was raised to be a good Catholic girl, wasn’t she? So no matter how much Lorna wants to run her hands over Nicky’s body the way she used to, she can’t let herself. She’s been given a second chance at a real life, a _normal_ life, and it might be the last chance she ever gets.

It all sounds like something out of a rom com, what Nicky has said. This is the darkest moment: Nicky Nichols, the plucky protagonist, is hopeless. Her true love—played by the alluring, gorgeous Lorna Morello—has left her all alone, the result of some silly misunderstanding. Nicky stares longingly, confesses her love when she thinks Lorna won’t hear. But of course she does—the misunderstanding is resolved. They’ll kiss; there will a big church wedding, and then they’ll ride off into the sunset toward their happily-ever-after.

Except that this is real life. Lorna ~~Morello~~ Muccio has had her (not-big, not-church) wedding already, and it wasn’t to Nicky Nichols.

~ ~ ~

_“Lorna Morello,” he says, down on one knee in front of her, “will you marry me?”_

_It’s perfect. They’re in the post office where they had first met, only now it’s all decked out in streamers and balloons and ribbons. Lorna would bet that all her friends and family are here, hiding behind the empty boxes and the front counter, just waiting to jump out and yell “surprise!” when Lorna inevitably accepts the proposal._

_A smile spreads wide across her face. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear; she has to look perfect for the engagement photographer she’s sure is crouched somewhere in a corner of the room, capturing every second of their perfect moment._

_“Yes!” she says ecstatically._

_But then his face is changing. The counter becomes a podium; the ceiling grows and grows until it’s far above her head, and the walls morph from industrial grey into the jarring warmth of burnished wood. Lorna’s cute sundress transforms before her eyes into a little black number with chains all on it, just like she’d worn that day at the hearing._

_“I wasn’t interested in pursuing things further,” Christopher says, and every word feels like a punch to the gut._

_Lorna’s smile is pasted-on now; her lips quiver at the edges, but still she can’t wrap her mind around it. She wants to run to him, to throw her arms around him and—what? To kiss him? Or to wrap her little hands around that perfect neck and strangle him until he’s lying cold on the floor?_

_She doesn’t know which she wants more. Lorna trembles in her seat and watches his lips move until she can’t take it anymore. She jumps from her chair and runs across the carpeted floor and throws her body at him over the podium, hands reaching out for him until Christopher’s face contorts into a twisted snarl and it’s his hands around her throat, and now she’s wearing a white wedding dress and it’s her veil he’s pushing into her mouth and she gags and tries to cry out but she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, she can’t—_

Lorna woke up with tears on her cheeks, unable to stop the little whimpers that came out of her mouth as the world came into focus around her. This was still a dream; it must be, because she was in prison, and that was wrong—she shouldn’t be here, should she? All that with Christopher… that was just a bad dream, wasn’t it?

She squeezed her eyes shut tight and pretended she was back in her old bedroom, with the soft, shiny bedspread and her cute clothes hanging across every surface and all the magazine cut-outs up on the wall. That blonde-haired, blue-eyed magazine man stared down at her from above her desk, face looming closer and closer until Lorna had to open her eyes again. Even prison seemed better than that leering face.

Her body shook with sobs; she tried to quiet herself, wondering what time it must be. She wished morning would come fast. Lorna knew she wouldn’t be sleeping again that night.

A shadowy shape moved near the entrance to her cube, and Lorna started, curling in on herself and hoping to god that whoever it was hadn’t realized she was awake. Her sobs died in her throat, stillborn with terror.

“Lorna?” It was Nicky’s hushed voice; Lorna’s tight muscles instantly relaxed just a bit at the familiarity of the sound. “You okay?”

She nodded her head, then realized Nicky couldn’t see her in the darkness. “I’m… I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound so good to me.” The dark shape crossed the cube, and then Nicky was there beside her, lifting the blanket and slipping into the bunk next to Lorna. Her body heat was immediately comforting; Lorna was ashamed of how fast her arms went around Nicky’s waist, pulling the other woman in close.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Who said anything about talking?” Nicky’s tone was suggestive, and Lorna couldn’t help but let out a choked little giggle. “There are other ways to pass the time.”

“Oh, really?” Lorna asked, playing dumb. “Like what?”

“C’mon, Morello, you know exactly what.” Nicky dropped her voice low, leaning in close to whisper in Lorna’s ear. “Or did you forget yesterday afternoon in the showers?”

“I dunno,” Lorna breathed, a shiver tingling down her spine, “maybe you could remind me.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I will.” She followed her words with an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Lorna’s neck. “But you have to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna have to be very, _very_ quiet. Can you do that?”

Lorna wasn’t sure if she could, but she nodded anyway. This was what she needed—any distraction from her dreams was a welcome one. Besides, this little ritual with Nicky, however guilty it made her feel, was always a comfort.

For once, Lorna found herself thanking the heavens for Boo’s capacity to snore like a freight train (and to sleep about as heavily as one, too). She tried to keep her breathing steady, lying there on her side with her arms still looped around Nicky’s waist. It was an awkward position, but Nicky had managed to maneuver a hand up under Lorna’s nightie, which was now bunched around her hips. Her fingers were trailing slow circles across the sensitive skin of Lorna’s stomach, and when her hand skimmed up Lorna’s side, Lorna let out a little snort.

“That tickles!”

Nicky moved her hand further up. “And how about this?”

Lorna had to bite her lip as Nicky’s hand landed on her breast, cupping gently at first before palming her roughly in a way that made Lorna gasp. Her head spun; she hoped Nicky’s question was rhetorical, because even this small amount of skin-on-skin contact was enough to rob Lorna of the power of speech.

“That’s what I thought.” Nicky chuckled, somehow managing to make her voice low and seductive even in a whisper. “Just lay back, baby. I’m gonna make you forget whatever’s on your mind.”

Lorna swallowed hard, small hands clutching Nicky’s waist and pulling her in closer. She closed her eyes, tilting her head back as Nicky planted long, warm kisses on her exposed throat. It wasn’t long before she found herself breathing hard; she had to bite her lip to keep herself from whimpering as Nicky’s capable hands worked their way lower.

The curly-haired woman was taking her time, running her hands all the way up Lorna’s sides and then down over her thighs. From the way she was breathing, Lorna could tell she was getting worked up, too. Suddenly overcome with the urge to kiss her, Lorna tilted her head down, releasing her grip on Nicky’s hips in favor of grabbing a handful of that wild hair.

Lorna’s breathless moan was stifled by the meeting of their lips, the welcome taste of Nicky invading her mouth as their tongues caressed one another. Nicky bit Lorna’s bottom lip; Lorna responded by pulling away and then crashing back into her with only the slightest whimper of anticipation escaping into the air between them. It was messy, passionate, completely unchoreographed, and yet somehow graceful. In the depths of her dazed mind, Lorna had the unbidden thought that kissing someone had never felt so effortless.

She gasped into Nicky’s mouth when she felt the other woman’s fingers enter her at last. Eyes closed, she couldn’t help the soft moan that slipped past her lips as the pad of Nicky’s thumb ghosted over her clit.

“Quiet,” Nicky warned with a wolfish grin, and Lorna had to bite her lip as she nodded, sure that anything she said in response would only trail off into a sound of pleasure.

 _“Fuck,”_ she breathed, fingers curling into the hair at the nape of Nicky’s neck. It was taking every ounce of her concentration to keep herself even this quiet. “God. Oh my _goddd,_ Nicky _…_ ”

“No need to call me god, baby.” There was a mischievous light to Nicky’s eyes. “Though… I certainly ain’t complaining.”

Even in the state she was in, Lorna still had enough control to let out a little snort of laughter. “Don’t ya go gettin’ too cocky, Nichols, or else I’ll have to let Boo give it a spin.”

“You would never,” Nicky purred, something in her eyes darkening possessively. “You don’t really think she could do _this_ , do you?”

A twist of Nicky’s fingers inside her, another confident circle around her clit, and Lorna couldn’t help the keening noise that left her lips. It was quickly swallowed up by the softness of Nicky’s lips against hers, but if Nicky had intended that gesture to silence her, she was sorely mistaken. The sensation of the kiss only ignited Lorna’s desire further, her hips rising off the bed in a futile effort to bury Nicky’s fingers even deeper inside.

“I’m gonna make you come so hard,” Nicky was mumbling against her lips, “harder than anyone has ever made you come before. You want that?”

Lorna nodded, the motion jostling their mouths together. Nicky took the opportunity to slip her tongue into Lorna’s mouth, stealing her breath entirely. The kiss became arrhythmic, disjointed as Lorna’s pleasure built higher and higher and higher until—

Nicky stilled her fingers. Lorna’s thighs trembled, hips bucking up, but Nicky kept her there on the edge with one last teasing swipe of her thumb over her clit.

“Nicky, I’m so close, oh, _fuck_ , please…”

“ _Shh._ ” The light in Nicky’s eyes burned brighter than ever. Her tone was commanding, but underneath it simmered the same feverish need that tingled through every one of Lorna’s nerves. “Could Boo make you feel like this, huh? Tell me she could.”

It was a challenge, but Lorna didn’t have it in her to fight. “No, no, only you, you’re the only one, Nicky, please, please, _please._ ”

She was instantly rewarded with the rhythm of Nicky’s fingers resuming their motions, perfectly in tune to the rolling of her hips. Almost immediately Lorna found herself back at the edge. One more stroke of Nicky’s fingers and she would be there; her head swam just anticipating it. But Nicky wasn’t done.

“Could Christopher make you feel this good, Lorna?”

No. No, he couldn’t. Even in all the times Lorna had fantasized about him, nothing her imagination had conjured up had ever come close to the way Nicky was making her feel.

Nicky didn’t wait for her response this time; Lorna could tell that despite all the talk, Nicky was just as turned on as she was. Neither of them wanted to hold back.

“Come on, Lorna,” Nicky murmured, the quiver in her voice betraying her own desire. “Come for me, baby. Tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had. Yeah, that’s it, that’s it, come for me…”

Nicky’s words faded into background noise as climax hit Lorna with the force of a hurricane. Everything was wrapped up in sensation—she felt acutely the warmth of Nicky’s body, the tension of her fingers, the softness of her breath. Lorna let the pleasure course through her without thinking, not even trying to be quiet anymore.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Nicky, I love you—” she said, and then her whole body tensed up because what the _fuck_ had she just said? She hadn’t meant it. She hoped Nicky knew she didn’t mean it, it was only that it was so hard to think with Nicky’s hands on her and _goddd_ —she had to stop thinking again because Nicky’s fingers were still moving inside her, and it wasn’t over yet. Her legs were shaking harder than she’d thought possible, her entire body rippling with the aftershocks as she clenched and unclenched around Nicky’s fingers in an ecstasy so intense it bordered on painful.

Nicky had to shove the thin prison-issued blanket from the bunk into Lorna’s mouth to muffle the ungodly sounds making their way past her lips, and for a brief panicked moment all Lorna could think was that they were gonna get caught for sure. But the fear was gone in the very next moment because no matter what happened, this was all so, so worth it.

When she opened her eyes, Nicky was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but Lorna couldn’t let her finish the thought, scared she was about to mention what Lorna had just said.

So Lorna brought Nicky’s mouth to her own with more force than was strictly necessary, causing them both to wince. At the same time, she slipped her hand down into Nicky’s pants, feeling how wet she was. But instead of leaning into the kiss, Nicky pulled back, grabbing Lorna’s wrist.

“Whoa there, tiger. I can take care of myself.”

“I know that,” Lorna said, using her free hand to remove Nicky’s hand from around her wrist.

“Then why—”

“ _Shhh_.” Lorna placed a finger over Nicky’s lips, finding herself entranced by the little smears of mascara under the other woman’s eyes, the slightly chapped texture of her lips. Nicky stared back at her with those ever-blinking eyes, quiet at last.

It was clear that she was already close from how wet she was, which gave Lorna a sort of thrill. She’d barely touched Nicky, and yet Nicky was already breathing hard, letting out breathy moans and whimpers as Lorna moved her fingers. She was much quieter than Lorna, but that didn’t matter; after how many times they’d done this together, Lorna could read her body language like an open book.

She could understand why Nicky liked this. It was a powerful feeling, knowing that _you_ were the reason for someone’s pleasure. Watching the way Nicky bit her lip, the way her eyes fluttered closed, feeling the sharp tug as one of her hands wound its way through Lorna’s hair, Lorna felt a strange sense of pride. She would never be like Nicky—this would never be enough to get her all the way there—but there was something almost _holy_ in it. Lorna was always struck with the urge to run her hands over every inch of bare skin she could find, to worship Nicky’s body like she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

It was in these moments that Lorna knew that they’d gone somewhere they could never come back from. It wasn’t love—she couldn’t bring herself to say that it was—but it was something. If she’d just let Nicky pleasure her without reciprocating… or if she’d only reciprocated because she’d felt obligated to return the favor… well, maybe then it wouldn’t have felt like a lie to say she only liked pink in prison.

But she knew that she enjoyed this part, too. Lorna loved how Nicky mumbled her name under her breath, the noises she made just before she fell over the edge, Nicky’s warm heat around her fingers, the way the movement of her hips drew Lorna in deeper. She loved the swell of satisfaction in her own chest when she moved her fingers in just the right way and Nicky found her release under Lorna’s hands.

It had never been like this with any guy. Men were easy; a few strokes of Lorna’s hand, a swirl of her tongue, and they came apart. It hadn’t been unpleasant, but pleasuring them had never felt like a victory to her. And it _did_ feel that way with Nicky, every time, ever since Nicky had first let Lorna touch her behind the pulpit in the chapel. Somehow it never managed to get old.

This time was no different. Nicky was the one struggling to be quiet now (although she was doing a much better job of it than Lorna had). Lorna could hear her swearing in a low voice, in between the breaths and moans when she moved her fingers just the way Nicky liked. And then she was there. Lorna could feel Nicky tighten around her fingers, and then—

“Jesus, Lorna. Lorna, Lorna, Lorna, _ohhhh_ …”

Lorna didn’t have the same swagger or propensity for dirty talk as Nicky. She didn’t feel the need to urge Nicky to say her name or to let her know how good she was making her feel, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make her happy to hear Nicky say it. She pressed an affectionate kiss to Nicky’s forehead, feeling such a wave of fondness rush over her that she had to take a deep breath to steady herself before she rolled herself out of her position half on top of Nicky.

Scooting backwards toward the wall, she made room for Nicky to lay comfortably beside her in the tiny bunk. There wasn’t much space; their limbs were still comfortably intertwined, bodies pressed up against each other to avoid falling off. Nicky’s hand was stroking along Lorna’s cheek and down her neck, drawing circles just above her collarbones before returning to brush over her jawline.

Nicky gave her a peck on the lips. “You didn’t have to… I would’ve been fine without—”

“I know.”

“Then—about what you said earlier—”

Lorna’s stomach twisted. “It was nothing. I mean, that’d be silly, wouldn’t it?” She laughed softly; it sounded fake even to her own ears. “I mean, I’m still with Christopher, ya know? I love him.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“You should really take it as a compliment,” she said. “You’re not bad with your hands, Nichols.”

“Not bad?” Nicky snorted. “C’mon, Morello, ya gotta give me a little more credit than that.”

“Fine, baby, you’re pretty great,” Lorna murmured, suddenly tired. Shifting to cuddle even closer to Nicky, she nestled her head under the other woman’s chin against her chest. “Will you stay?”

“Just for a little while.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, kid.”

Lorna could feel her eyelids growing heavy. Briefly, her dream of Christopher slipped back into her mind; she shivered, and then Nicky drew her in closer, tracing shapes over Lorna’s back. Lorna recognized some of them as letters, like the game she’d used to play with Francine when they were younger. They’d used to write words on each other’s back and then make the other guess what they’d meant, everything from song lyrics to nursery rhymes to insults.

 _Here_ , Lorna felt, and _ok._ There were other fragments of words she didn’t quite catch, and she didn’t bother to ask Nicky to explain. She just let herself relax into the touch, letting the motions soothe her.

Just before she drifted off into sleep, she swore she felt Nicky write: _I love you, too._


	8. Break My Heart Again (Nicky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a little longer than I intended, but I finally finished this chapter! Motivation has definitely been low over the last few weeks.   
> The episode where these scenes happen is SO hard for me to watch. I cheered when these two got back together again, and then, of course, the scene where Lorna ends it (AGAIN) hit me like a sucker punch. So I hope I've done it justice!  
> I hope you are all doing well, and that you enjoy the chapter. As always, thanks for reading. :)

_“Oh, it must be nice to love someone who lets you break them twice.”_

Maybe this whole riot thing isn’t so bad after all. Nicky had admittedly been concerned at first, but sitting in the back of her and Lorna’s makeshift pharmacy, hands folded across her lap, she’s beginning to think that maybe she’d been wrong.

The Weeping Woman—for the life of her, Nicky can’t remember the woman’s real name—is looking at her with hope in her eyes, and for once Nicky feels as though something she’s done has real value. It’s not much, she knows, but maybe her role as de facto prison therapist can brighten a few days while all this shit goes down around them.

“Thank you!” the woman exclaims, and then Nicky’s eyes widen as she gets up and pulls Nicky into a warm hug.

“Whoa! Boundaries, right?” Nicky’s already pulling her hands off, trying to disentangle herself from the Weeping Woman’s grasp. “So, there you go. Let’s keep it professional.”

She gives the woman a little wave as she walks out the door, then settles herself back into her seat. But the next person who walks through the door isn’t who she expects.

It’s Lorna, flouncing in with a playful bounce to her step that can only mean trouble. She’s got that light in her eyes that Nicky has always adored—that little spark of mischief that tells Nicky that Lorna is not, in fact, the good little Catholic angel everyone assumes her to be.

“Hi,” she says. There’s an arch to her eyebrow, and her tone is loaded—Nicky would say flirty, almost, but she refuses to let herself go down that rabbit hole again.

So she keeps her tone purely friendly. Professional, like she’d told the Weeping Woman. “Hi.”

“My name’s Lorna. Morello. Muccio.” After the pause on _Morello_ , Nicky half thinks she’s going to end it there. But no; she’s married. God forbid Nicky ever forget it.

Still, Nicky can’t help but play along with the little game Lorna has started: Nicky as doctor, Lorna as patient. Three months ago, Nicky would have jumped at the chance to tell Lorna she knew _exactly_ what was the matter with her—she was clearly suffering from Nicky Nichols withdrawals, but not to worry, Dr. Nichols could prescribe her a few orgasms to solve her problem. Now, though, she knows better than to push it that far. Lorna has made it abundantly clear that regardless of what’s happened between them in the past, they’ll never be anything more than friends again.

“Is that German?” she deadpans, carrying on the charade, and is more than a little amused at Lorna’s resulting giggle.

“N-nooo, I’m _Italian_.”

“Yeah, I know you’re Italian. Your name may as well be Lorna Lasagna.” She says it with fondness, not malice, knowing that Lorna’s laughter shouldn’t be so endearing to her but unable to stop her mouth from quirking up on one side. She can’t help it—Lorna looks so alluring sitting there across from Nicky as she settles back in her chair, their eyes locked on one another. Nicky forces herself to go back to thinking safe thoughts—to continue their little playact. “Anyway, miss… continue.”

“I’ve been having these dreams.”

“Go on.”

“Well, they’re kinda like… sexy dreams?”

Nicky knows they’re heading for the danger zone when Lorna says that, so she tries to discourage it in the only way she knows how. “Do these dreams, uh, involve… penises? Because that is going to drastically reduce my interest in the subject matter.”

“No penises,” Lorna says quickly. The way she looks down and then back up at Nicky is almost bashful, but her words are confident. “Well, not exactly. It’s a little embarrassing, honestly.”

Nicky should stop her. She _knows_ she should, but Nicky has never been good at doing what she should, which is the weak justification she gives herself as she stays silent and lets Lorna continue.

“Um, I’m riding a whale. In the ocean.” Her voice changes, and Nicky shifts uncomfortably in her chair because she _knows_ this voice, this is Lorna’s sex voice, and she can’t let it have the effect on her that it always does. “And the water on my skin, it feels _sooo_ amazing. And, you know, they have those… those blow holes…”

“Hey, come on,” she tries, but Lorna just keeps on going.

“...and it’s aimed riiight...”

“Hey, hey,” Nicky interrupts, not at all sure where this is going and even less sure that she wants to find out. “I think we’re out of time.”

_Be professional_ , she reminds herself, even though she’s not really a therapist and Lorna’s not really her patient. Professionalism isn’t the real reason she should keep her distance, but with the way Lorna’s looking at her, it’s the most compelling one.

Lorna’s next words are breathy, full of a desire that makes Nicky shiver: “Please fuck me.”

Nicky almost thinks she’s heard wrong at first, but then her brain catches up and suddenly it’s like her nerves have been set on fire. Every fiber of her body wants to reach out—Lord only knows it would be easy enough. They could both use a break from all the chaos surrounding them. Just to ease the tension, that’s all, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Nicky’s good at casual sex, good at keeping her emotions in check, isn’t she?

She knows she’s lying to herself. She can do casual, but this isn’t just sex, this is _Lorna_ , and Nicky can’t let herself do this again. Not if Lorna’s not all in.

“What about Vinnie?” she asks. She’s not sure what she wants Lorna to say— _you’re right, I’m married, this is a bad idea_. That would be the simplest. Or maybe something else. Maybe Nicky wants her to say, _fuck Vinnie. I need_ you _. I love_ you _—it’s always been_ you _._

“I really need your help,” Lorna says, and then she’s climbing into Nicky’s lap, and Nicky’s mouth goes dry. “I’m so fucking horny, and I can’t stand it, and I need you to fuck me.”

Nicky’s heart is already beating ridiculously fast. They haven’t been this close in so long—not since Lorna got married, that’s for sure. She hates to admit how much she’s missed it, how much she’s longed for Lorna’s touch. And now she’s here, sitting right in Nicky’s lap, fingers curled around Nicky’s jawline and thumb stroking her cheek, and everything somehow feels okay again. She can feel herself getting lost, but she can’t bring herself to look away from the earnest glimmer in Lorna’s eyes.

Her words come out almost in a daze, but she still manages the cocky nonchalance she knows is a turn-on for Lorna. “You’re begging me?”

“I’m begging you.”

“You’re begging me?”

“Yeah,” Lorna gasps, and then again, low and under her breath: “ _Fuck me._ ”

And _god_ , it feels so good to hear her say that. It’s not _I love you_ or _I’ll leave him_ or _I want to be with you forever_ , and Jesus-fucking-Christ, she knows deep down that it’s no more of a promise than any of the times before. But as it turns out, Nicky Nichols is still the very same sucker she’s always been when it comes to a certain Lorna Morello. It’s enough for her. She’s in.

“You know I’m a doctor, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m really serious,” Lorna says, and she must be, because the next thing Nicky knows, Lorna’s moving her hand up and over her breast. Her next words come out in a whine of desire. “Look after your patient.”

Nicky’s next words are tinged with desperation, but she can’t bring herself to feel ashamed. “Your tits feel amazing.”

“Oh my god, I missed you so much.” Lorna’s words are vulnerable, more of a whimper than anything else. It’s everything Nicky has wanted to hear since she’d gotten back from Max—everything Lorna has denied her, again and again, since she’d married Vinnie.

She can’t help herself; she crashes their lips together, desperate to taste Lorna again. It’s a little awkward at first, Nicky realizes with a shock—it had always used to be so effortless, but it’s been a long time since she and Lorna have kissed. But they find their rhythm before long, hands entangled in one another’s hair, Nicky’s arm coming around Lorna’s back to draw her in closer.

“What happens in a riot stays in a riot?” Nicky asks when they break apart. Maybe some part of her hopes Lorna will let Nicky love her forever, but now’s not the time for that conversation. Right now all she needs is Lorna’s body beneath her hands—her nipples under Nicky’s palms, her warmth on Nicky’s tongue, her voice echoing in Nicky’s ears. Lorna is the one begging, but Nicky knows she’ll be the one on her knees.

“Yeah,” Lorna says, and Nicky kisses her again.

She strokes her fingers over Lorna’s cheek, tucking her hair back behind her ear in a gesture that can only be called tender. It’s almost too much for her, this moment—Lorna’s legs wrapped around her waist, the softness of her lips sliding against Nicky’s, her breasts pressed close against Nicky’s chest. Maybe Nicky is making it something it’s not, but kissing Lorna like this makes all her feelings come rushing back.

She slides her hands down Lorna’s body, not missing the opportunity to give her ass a teasing squeeze as she lifts her up. Nicky’s small, but she’s strong; she’s had a lot of practice over the years. She carries Lorna easily, walking her backwards until Lorna’s back hits the wall a bit more roughly than she’d anticipated. But it doesn’t matter; they’re too wrapped up in each other to care.

Nicky loses track of how long they stay like that, with Lorna pinned between her body and the wall. For once, they aren’t worried about the time—there are no other inmates to judge their messy shower sex or poke fun at the sound of Lorna’s moans issuing from behind the pulpit. More importantly, there are no guards to break them apart or send them both to the SHU for “inappropriate behavior.”

At last, Nicky has the luxury of taking her time. She can feel Lorna trembling where they’re pressed up against each other; she wishes she could use her hands, but they’re a little busy holding Lorna up at the moment. So she puts her mouth to good use instead, nipping at Lorna’s neck in a way that will surely leave marks later. It makes her burn inside, seeing the red welts her teeth leave behind, knowing that they’ll linger even after this is all over. Everyone who sees Lorna will know who did this to her.

It’s satisfying, too, that Lorna’s mouth is just as needy. When Nicky abandons her neck in favor of those cherry-red lips, Lorna kisses her back with shocking fervor. This is almost the way it had been in the beginning—almost the way it had been after Nicky had come back from the SHU, the same kind of desperation in every touch. Nicky tries not to let it get her hopes up, but there’s a swell of emotion in her chest as Lorna brushes one of Nicky’s stray curls back out of her face. The way Lorna’s looking at her—the glimmer in those melted-chocolate eyes, the dreamy smirk playing across her smeared mouth—almost makes her want to cry.

But she doesn’t. She can tell from the way Lorna’s breathing, from the little sighs and the way her legs are clenched tight about Nicky’s waist, that the brunette is anxious for them to get to the main event. Nicky is, too, but there’s a part of her that wants to just savor this moment. It’s not that she’s not turned on—her body is reacting to Lorna the way it always does, whether she wants it to or not—but kissing Lorna has always been something special in and of itself. Nicky can count on one hand the number of times they’ve kissed without it leading to sex. She knows she shouldn’t think about it, but sometimes she wishes they could have done this relationship the romantic way.

“Nicky, _please_ ,” Lorna whimpers, and the spell is broken.

Nicky pulls back. Lorna’s biting her lip, cheeks flushed and hair disheveled. Her lips are red—a combination of the remnants of her lipstick and the result of Nicky’s aggressive teeth. Her eyes shine with desire, and that’s all the urging Nicky needs. Slowly, she lowers Lorna down, hands tugging at the hem of her shirt. It’s up and over her head in a flash, and her bra follows shortly after.

And Christ, but she’s beautiful. Nicky has to stop herself from staring; it’s not like she hasn’t seen it all before, but there’s something different about this time. For the first time, the reality of this situation hits her in full force. Lorna is _married._ To Vinnie. She’s never going to leave him, not for Nicky, because no matter what she does, Nicky cannot be the cardboard cut-out of a man that Lorna craves. Maybe it’s not her fault, but Nicky will never, ever be good enough.

She hates herself a little bit in this moment. She hates herself as she pulls down Lorna’s khakis and then the white, prison-issued underwear that are the farthest thing from sexy she could’ve dreamt up. And she hates herself even more for the little voice in the back of her head that tells her that Lorna could make anything look sexy, even a potato sack.

Lorna will never belong to Nicky. She’s even not the same woman she’d been when they’d first met. She’s Mrs. Muccio now, the good little Italian housewife with the perfect hair and the immaculate lipstick and the fake suburban paradise and _fuck_ , Nicky knows exactly what’s going to happen next.

She’s going to touch Lorna the way she always does. With her fingers or her tongue, maybe both, it doesn’t matter. She’ll touch her and Lorna will see stars because Nicky is just _that fucking good_ , and it still won’t make a difference because Lorna will come screaming her name, and then she’ll fix her hair, smooth down her clothes, reapply a coat of that scarlet lipstick, and she’ll leave. She’ll leave and go call Vinnie, and Nicky will be alone all over again.

But Vinnie isn’t the one who’s here, is he? He’s not the one with his hands on Lorna’s breasts, running his fingers down the smooth expanse of her creamy skin. He’s not the one tugging at a handful of Lorna’s curled brown hair so he can bite at her bottom lip and delight in the gasp she makes, half pain and half pleasure.

Some twisted part of her wishes Vinnie really _were_ here, just so he could see this. Does he know the meaning of every sound Lorna makes, the way to read her whimpers and sighs and moans? Can he recognize the ecstasy that crosses her features just before she comes? How can he possibly understand what it’s like to love her like this—to give her pleasure without expecting anything in return?

Nicky channels the simmering self-hatred she feels into her movements. She can tell she’s being rougher than she usually is, but Lorna doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, quite the opposite. One of her hands has made its way to its favored position in Nicky’s hair, the other cupping her own breast as she moans, back arched and hips pressing themselves up towards Nicky’s face.

Nicky’s head is buried between her thighs, one hand feeling the slickness there. The other hand is wrapped around Lorna’s hipbone, grasping so tight she threatens to leave fingermarks there. It’s bruising, the way they both like it to be when Nicky’s the one in control. In the beginning, Nicky had expected Lorna to like movie sex—all cinematic, romantic, with soft lighting and choreographed movement. But then one day she’d raked her nails down Lorna’s back just a little harder than intended, and Lorna’s resulting squeal had been out of pleasure, not pain.

_“Fuck yes, Nicky, please, please…”_

Nicky had chuckled: _“You do have a dirty mouth, Morello, don’t you?”_

So much has changed since then, but that, at least, has not. Lorna still likes saying her name, over and over above her, and Nicky can’t help but glance up to watch her. She’s lost, wild, so clearly turned on that Nicky can’t help but feel smug.

She knows it’s naïve. But part of Nicky still clings to the delusion that if she fucks her good enough, Lorna will finally love her back.

~ ~ ~

She was the most gorgeous girl Nicky had ever seen. They’d met at a frat party—Nicky detested them on principle, but she always went anyway. There was something thrilling about it, knowing they’d let her in solely because she had a pair of tits and a pussy, when she had no intention of going home with any greasy frat boy. No, Nicky went there to beat the boys at their own game, and if she did say so herself, she was quite good at it.

So Nicky had left this particular party with a gorgeous redhead hanging on her arm—tall, leggy, with the kind of glossy hair that seemed straight out of a shampoo ad. Nicky didn’t normally like them tall—she liked being the one in control, in all aspects of the situation—but for this girl, she’d make an exception. She had the body of a supermodel: graceful neck, slender waist, tits that were small enough for her to go braless in the strappy little black number she was wearing but still, Nicky knew, big enough to grab with one hand while her other hand went to work between those long, long legs. Even her name was exotic: _Calypso_ , she’d said with a giggle, _like the Greek myth. You know, like in the Odyssey?_

Like the Greek myth. Nicky had had to rein in her little snort of laughter at that; it was possibly the most pretentious name she’d ever heard, and that was coming from someone who’d grown up on the Upper East Side. But it didn’t matter. With a body like that, Nicky wouldn’t have cared if she’d said her name was Little Bo Peep.

“I’ve never done this before,” Calypso was giggling. They were sitting together on Nicky’s bed, both of them drunk. “I mean, I’ve made out with other girls before, but…”

“You’ve never gone home with one?” Nicky took the opportunity to sidle closer, brushing a strand of ginger hair out of the other girl’s face. She let her hand linger there slightly longer than necessary, pleased when Calypso leaned into her touch. “Don’t worry, baby. All you have to do is relax. I’ll take care of you.”

*

Calypso was already awake when Nicky opened her eyes the next morning, looking fresh and unfairly cheerful. She was sitting up in the bed, cell phone in hand, only the sheet to cover her naked body.

In the daylight, head pounding from the alcohol she’d consumed the previous night—had it really been that much? Nicky hadn’t thought it had been that much, but her headache now was telling her otherwise—Nicky felt positively ratty by comparison. Her hair was fanned out like a giant lion’s mane around her head; pushing it back with a groan, she rolled herself over to face Calypso and fixed that trademark smirk of hers on her face.

“Morning, beautiful.”

Nicky moved to caress the smooth skin of Calypso’s shoulder, letting her hand skate dangerously low across the redhead’s collarbones, just above the sheet. But Calypso didn’t look up from her phone. Fingers flitting across the buttons, she sent whatever message she’d been writing before closing the flip phone with a loud _snap_.

“Who’re ya texting?”

“Oh, it’s just my boyfriend,” she said brightly. “I’m meeting him for brunch in an hour.” She smiled. “Why, did you want to come? I think he’d _really_ like you.”

Calypso was giving her the once-over, eyes appraising, and Nicky hated the way it made her feel like a piece of meat. There was nothing sexy about this look; it was purely analytical, as though Calypso was trying to picture Nicky propped up in bed with them, sandwiched between herself and her boyfriend.

“Boyfriend?” Nicky echoed, ignoring the rest of Calypso’s little speech. “You didn’t say you had a boyfriend.”

“Didn’t I?” She was frowning, not really paying attention, eyes glued to her little screen once more.

“Does he know about—this?” Nicky gestured between the two of them.

Calypso finally looked up, meeting her eyes with a look of mild surprise. “Oh, of course he does.”

“And he’s okay with it?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Uh, I don’t know, maybe because you just _had sex_ with someone that’s not him?” Nicky threw her hands up in the air in frustration before running one through her hair in a futile attempt to tame the frizz.

But Calypso just laughed. “You’re silly. It doesn’t count as cheating if it’s with a _woman_. Besides, Michael says he thinks it’s hot. I already told him all about last night.”

“Your boyfriend’s called Michael?” What a stupid fucking name. Even stupider than _Calypso_ , which Nicky was beginning to think was one of the stupidest names of all time.

“…yes?”

“Fuckin’ A,” Nicky muttered under her breath, throwing back the sheets with more force than was probably necessary and eliciting a little _hey!_ from Calypso when the movement exposed her naked body to the cold air. “You could’ve told me about Michael last night, don’t cha think?”

Calypso was blinking her pretty blue eyes at Nicky as though she didn’t understand. “Why are you freaking out?”

“I think you should go,” Nicky said bluntly.

“O-kaaay.” Calypso dropped the sheet to the floor—clearly, she was confident about her body—and picked up her discarded dress from where it lay next to the bed, shimmying back into it. Turning to look at Nicky over her shoulder, she bit her lip, giving Nicky bedroom eyes. “Would you mind zipping me up?”

With a huff of annoyance, Nicky crossed the room, unceremoniously pulling up the zipper while making a point not to touch the other woman any more than was strictly necessary.

“Bye,” she said pointedly, giving a curt wave in the general direction of the door.

Calypso was already slipping back into her high heels from the night before. “Call me? I’m sure Michael would like to—”

But Nicky had already let the door slam behind Calypso. With a heavy sigh, she stomped over to the kitchen area, rummaging through her junk drawer. As usual, it was an absolute mess, a clutter of paper clips, old receipts, and various knick-knacks. Eventually she found what she was looking for: a bottle of Advil, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes. She knocked back two of the pills without water, too lazy to get out a glass and fill it.

“Fuckin’ straight girls, man,” Nicky muttered to herself, then lit a cigarette.

Walking over to the balcony, she slid open the glass doors and stepped outside. The noises of the morning city echoed up around her as she puffed on the cigarette, dangling one hand casually over the railing. The combination of nicotine and New York was instantly comforting; much as she hated her absentee mother (if she could even be called a mother—Nicky didn’t know if she deserved the dignity of such a title), Nicky had to admit she was grateful for this apartment.

Well, fuck. Last night had gone spectacularly, in the moment—she’d made Calypso come five times, which wasn’t a record for Nicky, but still. Pretty decent. The redhead had been into it, too; not enough to reciprocate, but most of the girls Nicky picked up at parties weren’t. She was okay with that, usually. It would be generous to call most of those girls bi-curious, and besides, Nicky took pride in her identity as a top. She was a giver—that was her whole schtick.

But she didn’t fuck with girls who had boyfriends. It was all fine and good to take a straight girl home and rock her world for one night, but Nicky wasn’t about to be a homewrecker. It made her feel dirty; used, almost. She knew, then, that it didn’t mean anything, that she was only good enough for a little fun on a drunken night. Not that a one-night stand was supposed to mean anything. But Nicky still hated watching them run back to their boyfriends the next morning without a care in the world.

And it was even worse when it was a guy like Calypso’s boyfriend—Michael, apparently. If there was one thing Nicky hated, it was straight men acting like pigs. Sure, she did a fair bit of objectifying women herself, just here and there, but that was different. She hated the thought of Calypso texting him with Nicky asleep in bed next to her, telling him all those intimate details that were meant to be between the two of them alone.

_It doesn’t count as cheating if it’s with a woman._

And why didn’t it? Because love between two women could never be as real as love between a woman and a man? Men like Michael—and women like Calypso—would never take her seriously. She didn’t know why she bothered being upset by that anymore.

Nicky loved women; she was a self-proclaimed card-carrying lesbo, as she’d proudly declared back in high school (much to the chagrin of Marka). She’d long since stopped feeling ashamed for it. But _this_. This made her feel dirty all over again. Worse than that, it made her feel worthless.

Dropping the cigarette butt over the edge of the balcony, Nicky went back inside to shower and wash the scent of Calypso off her once and for all.

~ ~ ~

She walks into the shower with all her clothes on. It’s a useless, melodramatic gesture, and some part of her knows that, but Nicky is incapable of caring at the moment. There’s no one here now to tell her not to; she can wallow in this feeling for as long as she wants. And she thinks it’s going to be a long while.

She’s an idiot, that’s what it is. She’d known _exactly_ what would happen, so why is she even surprised now that everything has transpired just the way she’d thought it would? It’s always like this with Lorna, every fucking time, and she just lets herself repeat the cycle because she’s a sucker with a masochistic streak and a thing for cute brunettes with red lipstick.

_I didn’t mean to lead you on, honey. It’s the hormones. The hormones, they made me do it with you._

Nicky wants to yell, _bullshit!_ But she can’t even bring herself to be angry, just deeply hurt. Because Nicky knows Lorna, maybe better than Lorna knows herself sometimes. And Lorna had meant every word she’d said back there in the cafeteria—she always does. That’s one of the things Nicky likes best about her; there are no pretenses with Lorna. She’s unfailingly genuine.

The thing is, Lorna’s also fucking delusional. Even when she’s saying things that aren’t true, her goddamn head circus twists and molds them until they become her reality. And so she can sit in front of Nicky and tell her that _it’s the hormones_ and think she’s being one hundred percent honest when Nicky knows the real truth: Lorna is just a fucking coward. She has always been too scared to choose an uncertain future with Nicky over the comfort of her fantasies, and this time isn’t any different.

Nicky had known it as soon as Lorna had come down from her climax, as soon as she’d pulled her clothes back on and stammered something about wanting to freshen up before bolting out the door of the pharmacy. She’d known it even before she’d fucked Lorna, but she’d let herself go through with it anyway because Nicky, deep down, is still a junkie. And Lorna is her drug of choice. Every encounter leaves Nicky aching, hungry, desperate for one more hit. She’s not stupid; she knows it’s killing her slowly. But just as with the heroin, she finds herself unable to stop.

_I don’t want to do it anymore. This was the last time._

Those are the words Lorna had said to her back in the chapel, but they’re Nicky’s words now. She promises it to herself: this is the last time she’ll sleep with Lorna Morello. It’s over between them. If that means they can’t be friends anymore, so be it. Nicky has spent so long looking out for Lorna; it’s time for her to take care of herself now.

_What happens in a riot stays in a riot._

Nicky hadn’t meant it, but Lorna had. Beautiful, precious, sweet Lorna. She lets herself think about Lorna fondly one last time; her mind runs back through all the little moments that have led up to this, watching the story of their relationship like it’s a film. The innocence of their first kiss, the Christmas present she’d made for Lorna with her face on the groom as a “joke,” their perfect Valentine’s Day. Those are the parts she sees with rose-colored glasses before she forces herself to remember the rest.

The way it stung to hear Lorna choose her fantasy fiancé over Nicky, time and time again. How it had felt coming back from Max and learning Lorna was married. That afternoon in the bathroom when Lorna had almost kissed her before turning her head away again, saying she had to stay faithful to Vinnie.

_Are you sure he wouldn’t get off on hearing about you with another chick?_ Nicky had asked her, but Lorna had called her bluff immediately.

_It’s cheating if I even think about somebody else._

Nicky remembers the way she’d felt hearing Lorna say that: disappointed, but maybe a little satisfied. Because it had meant that it _counted_ to Lorna, that sleeping with Nicky now that she had a real husband would actually be a betrayal. It meant that whatever was between them was real.

But not real enough for Lorna to choose Nicky over Vinnie. So it’s not really a victory, after all.

And now Lorna thinks she’s pregnant. She’s batshit crazy; Nicky has known that for a long time, but she’s always chosen to overlook it. Part of her is worried for Lorna, but she tries to harden her heart. Lorna will be okay living in her fantasy world; she’s done it for her entire life.

_And look where that landed her_ , whispers a little voice in the back of Nicky’s mind, _in prison._

But it’s not Nicky’s problem anymore. She, too, had meant what she said back in the cafeteria: any good therapist would tell Nicky to move on, forget Lorna, never let her break her heart again. Nicky knows that from Lorna’s point of view, Lorna really hadn’t meant to hurt her. But that doesn’t change the fact that she _has_ , maybe irreversibly this time.


	9. If This Was A Movie (Lorna)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Finally!  
> Not going to lie, I've hit a bit of a wall with this story. I'm excited to get to the canon divergent part, which should start next chapter, and hopefully that'll get me back on track again.  
> I hope y'all are doing well even in these crazy times, and that you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy.  
> Any thoughts/comments you have would be much appreciated! :)

_“If this was a movie, you’d be here by now.”_

Watching Vinnie drive away feels the same as seeing Christopher up on that stand, testifying against her: disorienting in the most fundamental way, as though the very earth beneath Lorna’s feet has fallen away and she’s plunging endlessly down, down, down. She feels like a wild animal, completely feral and untamed as sound rips its way out of her throat. It’s meant to be Vinnie’s name, but it comes out high-pitched and fearful, trailing off into a wavering _no_ and then a sob as something inside her breaks.

This isn’t happening. She closes her eyes, hears the makeshift sign clatter to the ground as she brings her hands up to cover her face. This is all wrong. This should be the happiest moment of her life, but instead all she feels is an intense dread settling heavy in her heart. There are so many people staring—the Spanish girl whose name Lorna doesn’t remember standing at her left side, all the visitors congregated around the outside of the grounds, the guards standing down below. Maybe none of them are real, either. All that matters is Vinnie, but he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone—she opens her eyes and even his car is out of sight now, the settling dust the only evidence he’d ever been there at all.

She can feel the tears trickling out from between her fingertips, and she’s sure her mascara is leaving oily black streaks down her cheeks. Ordinarily, Lorna would run to her bunk to grab a washcloth and her lipstick and freshen up. There’s something about a clean face of makeup that makes her feel instantly better; it’s as if by looking put together on the outside, she can trick herself into believing everything is fine. The last time she’d stopped caring about makeup was when Nicky had gotten hauled away to Max, the last time she’d felt this very same devastation—but Lorna can’t think about Nicky. Vinnie is the one who matters. And back in the cafeteria, Nicky had made it clear that Lorna is on her own now.

Lorna doesn’t understand, not really. It’s always like this with Nicky. She always wants more than Lorna can give her, but that’s not Lorna’s fault, is it? She’d _told_ Nicky—she’s with Vinnie now, and she wants to stay loyal to him. And Nicky had agreed. _What happens in a riot stays in a riot._

Oh, but Lorna knows she’s lying to herself. A good wife isn’t supposed to run into the arms of an unreliable lesbian junkie, even if she’s a junkie who happens to be able to make Lorna feel better than any man ever has. It just isn’t right, and Lorna knows that. But god, she’d been so horny, and Nicky was there, just like she always is, and Lorna had let herself remember what it felt like to be touched by Nicky like that until she’d needed more than just her imagination to satisfy the ache between her thighs…

She feels guilty. Guilty for cheating. Guilty for saying she’d made vows and then asking Nicky to fuck her anyway. Guilty for the way Nicky had looked sitting there across from her in the cafeteria—the tightness in her jaw, the hurt behind her eyes. Lorna knows Nicky so, so well. And that’s why she knows this time is different from all the fights they’ve had in the past. Nicky has never been so cruel before. She had said that Lorna’s _crazy_ , that it isn’t cute anymore, that she needs help.

It’s not true, none of it is true. Lorna knows she’s not normal—ever since that day when Nicky held her on the stairs after Christopher’s visit, she’s known—but there’s nothing so very _wrong_ with her. Is there?

She’s pregnant. Lorna _knows_. She knows what’s real and what’s fake, and Nicky is just hurt. Nicky is only lashing out again now because she knows Lorna wants to be with Vinnie, and that’s the truth, Lorna _does_ want to be with Vinnie, only Vinnie is gone and—

Another sob makes its way out of her tight throat. Vinnie isn’t gone, he can’t be. _This_ is the delusion—Nicky is right, there’s something wrong with her head, and it’s making her believe that her handsome, protective, _loyal_ Vinnie has left her when Lorna knows he’d never do that.

Would he?

She doubts him only for a moment and then hates herself for it. He wouldn’t. She shakes her head, and with trembling hands she grabs up the sign. It looks pathetic lying there on the roof, just an old broom and a painted sheet, and the brokenness of it all brings tears to Lorna’s eyes all over again. She shouldn’t be crying, because nothing is wrong. That wasn’t Vinnie in the crowd, that wasn’t Vinnie making a dash for his car when his eyes landed on the sign. _Lasagna in the oven._ She’d thought it was pretty clever. Her Vinnie would think so, too—that’s why she knows it isn’t him she saw run away. He’s probably in his car on the road to Litchfield right now, singing along to the radio and dreaming of seeing her. He’s still coming for her. Her knight in shining armor will be here soon.

But her body knows what her mind cannot comprehend. The tears are still streaming down her cheeks; the cascade of mascara stings her eyes, but she is too numb to wipe the streaks of makeup away. Her feet lead her away from the roof, back down into the belly of Litchfield, and she’s not sure if the walls feel like a cage or a fortress. In here, Litchfield becomes her whole world; nothing needs to exist outside the walls if she doesn’t want it to. In here, at least Lorna is not alone.

Another animalistic sound, a low-pitched whine, tears its way out of her lungs as her words to Vinnie echo through her head, sounding flat and hollow: _“I got nobody in here, baby, I got nobody.”_ It’s never been true before—ever since Nicky had first locked eyes with her and winked, back when Lorna had still been wearing that atrocious orange jumpsuit, she’s never really been alone. Even when Nicky had been taken to Max, Lorna had known she had people looking out for her. Red would always protect her, because Red loved Nicky. And Nicky loved Lorna.

But now… well, Nicky doesn’t love Lorna anymore. That’s over, and Lorna wants to think it will be okay, but the truth is, nothing is the same now. She hasn’t seen Red in hours, Piper and Alex are probably holed up somewhere together, and Nicky hates her. For the first time, Lorna finds herself without anyone to turn to.

 _Vinnie’s on the outside_ , her brain reminds her. _He’s coming for you. Vinnie loves you, and he’s coming for you, and when this is all over you’re gonna have a beautiful baby and a handsome husband and it’s gonna be perfect._

Her mind replays the way he looked on that little tiny phone screen: protective and manly and reassuring. His lips move, but Lorna cannot hear what he’s saying. She knows the words that should be coming out of his mouth, but she cannot remember the way he said them and it makes her want to scream. She _needs_ to hear it again, needs to hear Vinnie’s voice telling her it’s going to be alright because he’ll be there soon. But all she hears is the sound of Vinnie’s car unlocking, the grit of wheels on gravel as he pulls out of the parking lot, and it’s becoming harder and harder to conjure the image of his face to her mind.

Instead, Nicky’s face is the one that flashes before her eyes—raccoon rings of eyeliner, messy lion’s mane of golden-red hair, teeth bared in an almost-snarl that’s as much out of pain as it is out of anger.

She can hear Nicky’s voice perfectly in her head: _“I love you so much, Lorna_. _”_

But that can’t be right. It’s supposed to be Vinnie saying those words to her, not Nicky, because she’s not in love with Nicky, she’s in love with Vinnie, and he has to be the one she ends up with. Lorna is having his baby! And it’s perfect. It’s what she’s dreamed about since she was a little girl—the assurance that after these nightmarish months at Litchfield are up, everything will be the way it is supposed to be. She won’t have to stare at the perfect features of movie stars on the posters taped to the walls of her childhood bedroom. Not anymore, not ever again, because she’ll have the real thing. _This_ is what happily-ever-after is supposed to feel like.

Nicky isn’t supposed to love her. Nicky isn’t _allowed_ to love her, she isn’t in love with Lorna, it doesn’t mean anything to her. How many times has Nicky told Lorna, during one of their arguments, that Lorna’s nothing special? That Nicky has been with a million girls better than her, that Nicky could have a million other better girls in the future? Sex means nothing to Nicky; that’s why she has the reputation she does. Lorna is just the warm body that Nicky comes back to when she can’t fill the hole in her life with heroin, that’s all. Nicky sitting in front of her, saying that she loves her— _that’s_ the delusion. Lorna’s mind is making that up to trick her.

And that’s when she sees it: Nicky with her hands in some other woman’s hair, their faces pressed close together. The woman is blonde, athletic-looking, a little taller than Nicky. She’s clearly confident, because even though Nicky’s the one pinning her to the wall, she’s grabbing Nicky’s ass in a way that Lorna is sure is a turn-on for her. Whoever the mystery woman is, she’s everything Lorna is not, and Lorna feels an inexplicable surge of jealousy at the sight.

And look how quickly Nicky moves on, kissing this other woman the same way she’d kissed Lorna just hours earlier. She doesn’t love Lorna, whatever she’d said in the pharmacy and the cafeteria. If she’d said those things at all.

Nicky looks different, and Lorna’s dazed mind can’t tell if she thinks that’s a good thing or not. Her hair is tied back in a classy bun—Lorna doesn’t think she’s ever seen it looking so sleek and well-behaved—and she’s wearing subtle makeup that brings out those big brown eyes as she looks away from the mystery woman for a split second to glance at Lorna. Nicky’s short black skirt shows off all her curves, and for a moment Lorna has an almost-vision: watching Nicky walk down a New York City sidewalk in that little black dress, a goofy smile on her face as she waves back at Lorna. But in Lorna’s mind, that gorgeous hair that she loves so much is loose and blowing in the breeze. Nicky is wild and free and so beautifully alive, and for the first time, Lorna fully realizes that Nicky Nichols is capable of existing outside the walls of Litchfield. Maybe she’s capable of existing in Lorna’s life even after their sentences are up.

But it doesn’t matter; Nicky doesn’t want that anymore, if she even ever did. It’s too late now. Nicky gives Lorna a look almost like she wants to say something, but then the mystery blonde whispers something to her and that smug, self-satisfied smirk falls back into place. Cockiness has always been a good look on Nicky, at least to Lorna, and apparently the blonde agrees because her hands are all over Nicky’s body, and the two of them are leaning in again, and Lorna can’t bear to watch anymore.

It feels like her heart has been impaled with a shitty prison shiv, and she’s not sure if it’s more because of Nicky or because of Vinnie. All Lorna knows is that she’s losing the two best people she’s ever known, and a little seed of doubt creeps into her mind for the first time. Maybe Nicky and Vinnie are right. Maybe Lorna really _is_ crazy.

~ ~ ~

She had started out by trying to rationalize it: her period wasn’t really _that_ late; the women in her family had irregular cycles; they’d used a condom. She’d always had an overactive imagination. Her parents had had to remind her many times in her childhood not to jump to conclusions. So really, there was no way Lorna could possibly be pregnant.

But the nipples did not lie. She was standing in the shower two days after her period had failed to come on time when she noticed it: they were noticeably darker than before. And she’d have written it off like all of the other signs, but you know, that really _was_ a thing for the Morello women. Lorna wasn’t imagining it—she really was pregnant!

Lorna knew she should feel scared or uncertain, but instead all she could feel was elated. Maybe this wasn’t the way she’d imagined having her first child—she’d wanted it to be as perfect as in the movies, complete with a beautiful white wedding and an elaborately-decorated room for the baby. But hey, a baby bump at the wedding could be kinda cute. And this was good news, really; she loved Bernardo. Sure, they’d had their ups and downs. Lorna was still convinced he’d cheated on her with that girl from the restaurant where they’d had their first date. And just yesterday he’d called her a crazy bitch, but those were small things, really. Anyway, Lorna was sure he’d meant it as a term of endearment—men just weren’t good at expressing their emotions, that was all.

In all, Bernardo was just like his namesake from West Side Story: not quite the main heartthrob, but not half bad. Was he the Tony to Lorna’s Maria? Not really. But Lorna knew she could do a lot worse, and besides, he _was_ good looking. Their baby was gonna be the cutest anyone had ever seen, Lorna was sure of it.

She didn’t even bother getting dressed after finishing her shower, just wrapped herself in a towel before running down the stairs to tell Franny. Her sister was seated at the breakfast table, a bowl of cereal languishing beside her as she texted frantically on her flip phone. The house was unusually quiet—their father was likely at work, and the bell wasn’t ringing, which meant that Ma was mercifully still asleep.

Lorna waited a beat, but Franny didn’t even look up when she slid into the chair opposite her. Even when Lorna cleared her throat pointedly, her sister’s attention remained firmly fixed on the little screen.

“Franny!” Lorna snapped at last, batting the phone out of her sister’s hand and causing it to fall with a _thunk_ onto the wood of the table.

“God, Lorn, why are you always so impatient?” Franny groused. Scowling at her little sister, she snatched her phone up from the table, inspecting it to make sure it was alright. “You coulda knocked that right into the milk!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.” Lorna frowned at her sister, who’d gone back to texting. “Is that Jack?”

Franny’s eyes flashed in warning. “None of your goddamn business.”

“Ooh, it _is_ Jack!” said Lorna gleefully, before remembering she hadn’t come downstairs to make fun of her sister. “Well, aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m down here in only my towel?”

Franny rolled her eyes, but she complied with Lorna’s request in a clearly patronizing tone. “Fine. Why’re you down here in only your towel?”

“You gotta ask like you mean it.”

“Stop pouting, Lorna. You’re too old for that.”

Lorna wanted to be mad at her sister, but she was too excited to share her news. “Franny, I’m pregnant!”

“What?” Franny’s expression wasn’t at all what Lorna had expected—imagining it just moments before, Lorna had pictured a wide smile spreading across that pink-glossed mouth as Franny jumped up and pulled her into a hug, squealing about how excited she was to be an aunt. But the way Franny was staring at her now wasn’t happy. Instead, concern and confusion were written across her features as she stared back at her little sister.

“Well?” Lorna could feel her own smile wavering the longer Franny looked at her like that. “Aren’tcha gonna congratulate me?”

“Lorn.” Franny’s tone was gentle. “Are you sure you’re really pregnant?”

“Of course I’m sure!” Lorna said indignantly. What, did Franny think she was making all this up? This wasn’t her imagination—this was the real thing.

“I know you are, honey,” Fran said, using that voice that Lorna hated. It was her condescending older sister voice—the one she always used when she thought she knew what was best for Lorna, all sickly sweet and fake nice. Lorna had _hated_ that voice ever since they were children and Franny had first used it to inform her that she was childish for still believing in Santa Claus at the age of ten. (Their mother had scolded Fran for it, but the magic had been ruined for Lorna all the same.)

Lorna huffed. “I hope Bernardo’s happier for me than you are.”

Franny’s eyes widened; Lorna could see her sister bite her lip, opening her mouth as if to say something before shutting it and shaking her head. With a sigh, Franny went back to looking at her phone.

Now Lorna was suitably pissed off. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“ _Franny_.”

“I said, it’s nothing!”

“It ain’t _nothing_ ,” Lorna snapped. “Obviously you have something to say to me, so you might as well fucking say it.”

Franny looked surprised at her usually tame sister’s choice of words; Lorna was an adult, but she barely ever swore. At least not in front of the family. Giving a sigh of defeat, Francine threw her hands up in the air.

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell him, Lorn.”

Lorna frowned. “Why not?”

“Well, wasn’t he gonna break up with you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Franny, Bernardo loves me.” She defended him without a second thought. There was nothing to question; their relationship was solid. Dimly, in the back of her mind, she remembered the nice dinner they’d gone out to last night. It had been beautiful and romantic—he’d taken her to a fancy restaurant with flickering candlelight and soft violins playing in the background. Lorna had worn one of the designer dresses she loved, the ones she got online. Maybe it was a little bit illegal the way she got them, but so what? It wasn’t hurting anyone.

Bernardo had complimented her on that dress, too; he himself had looked more handsome than ever, sitting there in a nice button down and slacks with his dark hair slicked back. Glancing around the room, Lorna had done a quick survey and concluded that they were definitely the best-looking couple there. They’d dined and talked, and Bernardo had told her he loved her and kissed her goodnight on the front porch—chastely enough that they wouldn’t be embarrassed if anyone saw, but with just enough tongue to give Lorna little electric shocks from her head down to her toes. That was what had happened.

But her brain played back a second sequence of events just as quickly: Bernardo looking frustrated and tense as soon as he’d sat down across from her. He’d forgotten to pull her chair out. He didn’t even compliment her dress or the blush-pink lipstick she’d picked out just for him. And then he’d opened his mouth and said—

_“This isn’t working, Lorna.”_

_“What do you mean, not working?” She could feel her voice getting hysterical, but she didn’t know how to rein it in. Instead, the anger was rising in her throat, flushing her cheeks. Who the fuck did Bernardo think he was?_

_There was a long silence._

_“I just think it might be better if we both saw other people,” Bernardo said at last, and oh, she just wanted to jump across the table and strangle him right then and there._

_Instead, she drew in a deep breath and pasted a poisonous fake smile on her face. “Oh, you think so?”_

_He looked relieved that she was taking it so well. “Yeah, Lorna, I do.”_

_“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Her tone of voice was deadly calm; something was dawning on her. If Bernardo didn’t want her, she’d make sure he lived to regret it. “I deserve better than you, you scumbag.”_

_“What?” She reveled in the confusion on his face, the way he looked so caught off-guard._

_“You heard me,” Lorna said primly._

_“Yeah, well, if you think that, you’re even more of a crazy bitch than I thought.” Angrily, Bernardo pushed back his chair and threw his napkin down on the table. “Don’t call me again.”_

_She watched him walk away, feeling triumphant. She knew he loved her. It was only a matter of time before he realized what he’d lost and came running back._

“Lorna?” Franny was waving a hand in front of her eyes.

“Hmm?”

“You were on another planet for a sec there.”

Lorna frowned. “I’m fine. I gotta call Bernardo.”

“That don’t sound like a good idea, sweetheart,” Franny said.

“Yeah?” Lorna challenged. “Why not?”

“How late did you say your period was?” Franny was deflecting, but Lorna didn’t bother calling her on it.

“Two days.”

Franny’s eyes widened. “That’s barely any time, Lorna, it’s probably just late.”

“It’s _not_.” She knew it wasn’t. “I’m pregnant. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go tell my _boyfriend_ that he’s gonna be a father.”

She made to get up, but Franny stood up just as suddenly, her arm darting across the table to grab Lorna by the wrist.

“How about we get you a pregnancy test first?” Franny phrased it like a suggestion, not an order, but it still made Lorna prickle. When was Franny gonna get a life of her own and stop meddling in Lorna’s business?

But maybe it was better just to let Franny have this one. Lorna was sure she really was pregnant, anyway; a test would only confirm what she already knew to be true.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s get a test.”

*

When the first pregnancy test came back negative, Lorna made her sister buy five more. She stashed them in her desk drawer where she knew her parents wouldn’t find them; they’d have a heart attack if they knew Lorna was having a baby out of wedlock. But it would be okay. Lorna knew that as soon as Bernardo heard the news, he’d get right down on one knee like the gentleman he was. He _loved_ Lorna. He hadn’t meant it when he’d broken up with her; now that they were going to have a baby, he’d come back and beg for her forgiveness and kiss her and it would all be okay again.

Because she _was_ pregnant, whatever the test said. She knew it. She knew it even after the second, third, and fourth tests came back negative. Whatever those tests said, whatever Franny said, Lorna just _knew_.

Then, on the fifth day, she got her period. Looking down at the reddish-brown stain in her underwear, Lorna felt her head begin to whirl. This wasn’t possible. This was all wrong. She _needed_ this. Maybe this was a bad dream or her imagination, maybe she was still pregnant, maybe—

That night, she cried herself to sleep.

~ ~ ~

When Lorna sees the pregnancy tests in the pharmacy cabinet, it feels like they were placed there just to taunt her. Nicky had suggested it back in the cafeteria, sounding just like Franny had all those years ago, but Lorna doesn’t want to take a test. She tells herself it’s not that she doesn’t want to see what it says; it’s just that it would be a waste of a perfectly good pregnancy test when she already knows she’s got a bun in the oven.

And anyway, Nicky isn’t here to boss her around and call her crazy anymore. In fact, Nicky is nowhere to be seen. She hasn’t been in the pharmacy since she left to take care of Red, and even then, the only words they’d said directly to each other were angry. Lorna had wanted to hug her, but the closest she’d gotten was running her hands over Nicky’s exposed shoulders while Nicky talked Red down from her harebrained plan to lure Piscatella into the prison. Lorna had been ashamed in that moment of how she couldn’t stop wanting to be close to Nicky despite everything. It’s just that she’s not used to being alone, that’s all. Nicky has always been the person in Litchfield she’s closest to; the longing Lorna feels to touch her again, to make Nicky believe once and for all that she’s not crazy—those are natural things to want from her best friend. There’s nothing unusual about it.

And now Nicky has disappeared, according to Red. But Lorna refuses to be worried—after all, disappearing is one of the things Nicky Nichols is best at. Getting sent to the SHU, then Max, then leaving Lorna sitting there in the cafeteria with tears in her eyes so she could go fuck some other girl. She’ll probably turn up in a few hours with her slanted grin and that seductive tone of voice, pushing Lorna up against the wall and asking her if they can give it one more go. Lorna will have to turn her down, of course, push her out of her mind the way she always does. But she’d rather think about that than the way Nicky had looked walking out of the pharmacy with Red—the way she hadn’t even turned back, hadn’t even spared one last glance to make sure Lorna was alright.

The pregnancy tests remind her of Nicky. Worst of all, they remind her of Vinnie. She can’t bear to look at them, so Lorna pushes a couple of boxes of band aids in front of them and then shuts the cabinet door—calmly, like nothing is wrong. Because there’s nothing in there that could change everything, nothing that could tell her once and for all if she’s really as crazy as everyone thinks she is. It’s easier to pretend she hasn’t seen the box at all.

But she can’t seem to forget that it’s there, hidden behind the glass window of the cabinet and a couple of boxes of cheap, off-brand bandages. Lorna tries to put it out of her mind, she really does, but it haunts her. Even as she tells the other inmates that ‘crazy’ is just a state of mind, that they’re all special and unique and shouldn’t let the world take that away from them, she wonders about her own sanity.

What if Nicky and Franny and Vinnie are right about her after all? What is she supposed to do if she can’t even trust herself anymore?

She has to know. That’s why she opens the cabinet and moves the band aids, and there are the pregnancy tests again. Lorna feels almost as if that box is alive and staring back at her with an intimidating sort of glare. Her hands shake when she takes it down from the shelf, but she makes herself open it anyway.

Sitting in the grimy stall of one of the prison bathrooms, she watches the little blue line appear and cries because she doesn’t even know if it’s real. More than anything, Lorna wishes there were someone she could talk to, someone who could look and confirm what she thinks she’s seeing. She almost wishes she could sink back into the fantasy, hazy and disconnected from the world, but she sees everything with startling clarity in this moment: Nicky and Vinnie are gone, and she’s probably lost them forever.

The only person Lorna has now is herself.


	10. Heart Attack (Nicky)

_“I’m tryna be alright, but seeing you with him just don’t feel right.”_

“Whaddya think about this one?”

Nicky should have been looking at the picture of the wedding dress in the magazine Lorna was holding, but instead she was looking at Lorna—brows furrowed in thought, bright red lower lip trapped between white teeth. She hated how distracting Lorna’s lips were to her, especially now that she’d been wearing that lipstick Nicky had had Red smuggle in. It was a sinful scarlet color, and it made her think things she shouldn’t. But really, who could blame Nicky for imagining the way that lipstick would look smeared across her mouth after she kissed Lorna breathless? Or the little red marks Lorna would leave all across Nicky’s bare stomach as her mouth dipped lower, lower, lower…?

Nicky cleared her throat. “Uh, it’s nice.”

“Just nice?” Lorna frowned. “ _Nice_ ain’t gonna cut it. Not for my wedding.”

She sighed dreamily, and from the far-away look in her eyes, Nicky could tell she was caught up in a daydream. That happened often; although she hadn’t known her long, Nicky guessed it was Lorna’s way of coping with prison. They all had their strategies. Red’s was channeling her anger into the best food she could produce with the shitty stuff they gave her to work with; Nicky’s was keeping track of how many women she could make scream her name. (It was a lot. She was more than a little proud of it.) Lorna’s coping mechanism appeared to be fantasy—the fantasy of planning her dream wedding to a man who, to Nicky’s knowledge, had never even been to visit.

This Christopher seemed like an asshole, as far as Nicky was concerned. Not that she’d ever met him, but she really didn’t need to. The look on Lorna’s face after he failed to show up week after week was introduction enough.

Lorna was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth now. “This magazine’s gonna be outta date by the time I’m out. I don’t wanna show up to my own wedding wearing something last season…”

Nicky couldn’t help but laugh—fashion was something she neither knew nor cared about—but she stopped upon seeing the legitimately worried expression on Lorna’s face and the tears that were beginning to well up in her eyes.

“Hey, hey.” She reached out and laid a comforting hand on the brunette’s shoulder. “Three years isn’t that long. Besides, you’re a classic beauty, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“You really think?”

“I know it.”

Lorna beamed, smiling through the tears and sniffing a little. “You’re a great friend, Nichols.”

_Goddamnit._ Why did straight girls have to be like this? You complimented them and instead of taking it as flirting, they went straight for… _awwwwww, how sweet, you’re just the bestest friend ever!_ Like… no, the point is, you’re hot and I want you to sit on my face. Nicky did not understand it. Although maybe Boo was right, Lorna seemed like the kind of girl who wouldn’t even go for pink in prison. The fact that she spent most of her time planning her wedding to Christopher probably should’ve clued Nicky in long ago, but Nicky had always been good at ignoring things she didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Now we can’t have a crying bride, can we?” Nicky reached out to wipe away the single tear that had tracked its way down Lorna’s cheek. “Let’s see that smile.”

Lorna obliged, laughing a little bit despite herself as she gave Nicky a radiant smile that felt as golden as the sun itself. ( _Stop being so sappy, Nichols_ , she chided herself.)

“You got lipstick on your teeth, kid.”

Lorna blushed, running her thumb over her front teeth. “Did I get it?”

Nicky nodded in confirmation. “Maybe shouldn’t bite your lip so much.” Might be less distracting for her that way, too.

“Yeah.” Lorna went back to flipping through the pages of her magazine, and Nicky slipped an earbud into her ear, drumming her fingers on the table as the beginnings of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” began playing. Her parents had _hated_ how much she’d loved that band when she’d gotten old enough to buy her own music, which had only made Nicky love it more. She’d blasted hard rock in her room for hours on end just to annoy Marka (when she actually bothered to come over to the “home” she supposedly shared with Nicky instead of staying with Paolo all the time). It didn’t seem like the kind of music that would be soothing, but Nicky felt her eyes closing as she relaxed into the familiarity of the song.

The distinctive guitar riff of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” made her pop her eyes open after a few minutes, watching Lorna. For some reason, the song always reminded her of the brunette—not every lyric, but the gist of it.

_Now and then when I see her face, she takes me away to that special place. And if I stare too long, I’d probably break down and cry._

“What’re you listening to?” Lorna asked after a moment, looking up from her magazine.

Nicky responded by simply handing her an earbud. “It makes me think of you.” The statement was an honest one—maybe a bit _too_ honest, but Nicky kind of wanted to see Lorna’s reaction. It was a love song, after all.

Lorna blinked. “Is that why you always call me ‘kid,’ then?”

“What?” Nicky laughed. Lorna had totally missed the point, as usual. “No. I dunno, maybe?”

“It’s a good song.”

“Really? Thought you only listened to the _West Side Story_ soundtrack.” Nicky couldn’t help but tease, wearing a shit-eating grin and feeling satisfied when Lorna reached out and whacked her arm with the wedding magazine.

“Har har, very funny, Nichols.” Lorna idly flipped a few pages in her magazine before turning back to Nicky. “What would you wear?”

“Huh?”

“To your wedding!” Lorna said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Nicky couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not really the marriage type.”

“Oh. I forgot that it’s…” Lorna frowned, seeming unable to finish the sentence.

“That gay marriage isn’t legal everywhere?” Nicky smirked. “You can say the word lesbian, ya know.”

When Lorna simply blushed and didn’t say anything else, Nicky shrugged and continued.

“I’m not bitter about it. Like I said, I’ve never wanted to get married. Divorced parents’ll do that to you.”

“Yeah, but you must’ve dreamed about it a little.” Lorna’s doe eyes were fixed on Nicky in full force now, and Nicky could feel herself melting a little bit.

Truth be told, she hadn’t really imagined her own wedding. Nicky had always known she liked girls, and marrying a woman had never been a possibility she’d been presented with growing up. So why would she have dreamed of it? Besides, there really hadn’t ever been anyone she could see herself settling down and growing old with. It was far more fun to play the field.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said slowly, “but maybe you could help me.”

Lorna’s face immediately lit up, and she rummaged through her stack of magazines before handing a few to Nicky, who took them with a bemused laugh.

“Careful, smile any wider and you’re gonna split your face right open.”

“Shut up,” Lorna muttered, but she was still grinning. “What kinda dresses do you like?”

“Uhh…” Nicky wasn’t even sure where to start. She’d listened to Lorna drone on about various necklines and hemlines for hours, but that didn’t mean she’d retained any of the information. It wasn’t like she’d thought there would be a quiz on this shit!

Lorna looked her up and down for a moment with an analytical squint to her gaze that made Nicky feel at once scrutinized and appreciated. “Maybe a suit? That’s gonna be hard, I don’t think any of my magazines have suits for women…”

“Believe it or not, I _have_ worn dresses in my lifetime.”

“You’d want a dress?” Lorna looked surprised.

“Nah, just pulling your leg.” Nicky smiled. “Definitely a suit.”

Lorna nodded, flipping through a few pages until she found a section that showed men wearing various styles of tuxes. She pointed to one on the upper left corner. “You’d look sexy in that.”

To be honest, they all looked the same to Nicky, but she couldn’t help but blush. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Lorna gave her a fond smile. “Any girl would be lucky to marry you.”

_Fuck._ Lorna could _not_ keep saying these things. It was already hard enough for Nicky to focus on being friends with her without all this fucking sweet talk. Lorna was straight, Nicky had a habit of falling for the straight ones. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

She cleared her throat, aware of how husky her voice sounded. “Well, I doubt that’s ever gonna happen. Only one pussy for the rest of my life? Yeah, no, I’m gonna have to pass.”

“Nicky!” Lorna looked absolutely scandalized.

“Hey, there’re lots of great women out there that I haven’t gotten to know yet, if you know what I mean.” She smirked.

Lorna frowned. “You are the least romantic person I’ve ever met.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you’ve got me to balance you out.”

“As soon as we get outta this place, I’m gonna make you watch _West Side Story_ with me. Maybe then you’ll understand.”

Nicky raised an eyebrow. “Once we get out?”

Lorna blushed. “What, you won’t wanna know me once we’re on the outside?”

“I didn’t say that.”

It was an interesting thought, her and Lorna on the outside. Nicky doubted they ever would’ve met each other if it weren’t for Litchfield; they were just too damn different. And Nicky was a different person now than she’d been before. No matter how many times she’d been to rehab on the outside, she’d always sunk back into using the moment something wasn’t going right in her life. And even sometimes when everything had been perfect. It wasn’t prison that had gotten her clean—everyone knew prison was a shitty place for that—but Red had really turned her life around. Nicky would always owe her for that.

Sometimes she did wonder what Lorna had been like before. She realized now how little she knew about the brunette’s life before prison; Nicky was very open about being a junkie, but Lorna had never said what she’d been convicted of. The only thing she talked about from her life outside was her family. And, of course, Christopher.

They probably wouldn’t have been friends if they’d met any other way. What did they have in common, really, other than Litchfield? Nicky was a would-be philosophy major, a college dropout who’d had every advantage money could buy and wasted her life on drugs anyway. Lorna was the sweetest, most traditionally feminine girl Nicky had ever met, with the tight-knit Italian Catholic family to match. They had nothing in common. Nicky didn’t believe in love at first sight, and she’d long since stopped believing that there was any god with a plan for her. But meeting Lorna felt as much like destiny as anything she’d experienced.

“How did you know you wanted to marry Christopher?” The question was a simple one, but she felt almost vulnerable as she asked it.

“It felt like destiny,” Lorna said, sounding breathless. “We met in the post office—”

“Ah, yes, the _sexiest_ setting,” Nicky couldn’t help cutting in dryly.

“It was!”

Nicky rolled her eyes. “Come on, how can a post office possibly be romantic?”

“With Christopher, anything is romantic. That’s how you know you’re in love.” Lorna looked faintly surprised. “Haven’t you been in love before?”

Nicky shrugged. “I mean, yeah. I guess.”

Most of her relationships hadn’t really been _about_ love. More like… mutual sexual gratification, and that was usually enough for Nicky. She thought she’d been in love before; she’d had a few relationships in her early twenties, but most of those hadn’t lasted long when she’d invariably started using again. For a while, she’d wondered if monogamy just wasn’t her thing, but then there was the traitor part of her that fantasized about being held by someone at night. Most frequently, that someone in her dreams was Lorna. Although she would never admit that out loud. It was too fucking embarrassing.

“Love is the most beautiful thing,” Lorna was saying, her eyes all dreamy and a slight smile on her lips. She was lost in her own world, and Nicky wished for a moment she could join her there. “When you fall in love, you just _know_.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Lorna looked at her with wide, clear brown eyes. “True love is the easiest thing in the world.”

Nicky very much doubted that. _Sex_ was easy; love was not. With anyone else, she would have laughed at the statement, called it insipid or stupid or naïve, but there was something endearing about the way Lorna said it. She wasn’t in love with Lorna—it was just a stupid crush she’d get over when she found her next prison wife—but she found her eyes settling on those ruby-red lips again, wishing she could close the space between them.

With any other girl, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Because it would be a lie to say this was everything Nicky wanted—she wanted far more from Lorna than the brunette was willing to give her—but she found herself paralyzed. If she had to choose, Nicky knew she’d rather have Lorna as a friend than lose her as a lover. 

~ ~ ~

Hearing Vinnie’s voice is an almost-surreal experience. Nicky’s not sure of the emotion she feels at first—is it sorrow? anger? envy?—but what she does know is this: there is a kind of tightness in her throat, a burning behind her eyes. She holds it together because that’s what she has to do, but inside she feels like falling apart.

She wants to like him. For Lorna’s sake, for the sake of whatever friendship they have left, she _needs_ to like Vinnie. In her mind, she’s trying to build him up as some kind of fairytale prince, because that’s what Lorna always says about him. And even though Nicky doesn’t live in fantasyland the way Lorna does, she needs to believe there is something exceptional about this man. Something exceptional enough to explain to her how Lorna can choose him over Nicky again and again and again.

But reality can never live up to fantasy, now can it?

“You know what, fuck you!” Vinnie’s voice is tinny and full of vitriol on the other end of the phone. “I didn’t sign up for any of this shit.”

And it’s just _so_ fucking rich of him to say that, like he didn’t choose to marry a felon when there are all those women out there in the real world. Nicky tells him as much, barely holding back the anger in her words. He’d _chosen_ Lorna. And yeah, maybe he hadn’t known just what he was getting into, but maybe you shouldn’t _marry_ someone you’ve only met a handful of times in a shitty prison visitation room. Maybe you should have to really love them. Maybe you should have to sit on the stairs holding them while they cry, or goof off at every meal together, or have their strangled _I love you_ be the only thing keeping you going for three fucking months. Maybe that’s what you should have to go through before you marry someone.

So in reality, talking to Vinnie doesn’t make Nicky like him. In fact, she knows now what she’s feeling: anger, pure and simple, the kind of pulsing rage that makes her want to punch through the wall or maybe take a hit or two. She pushes a shaky puff of air out of her nose. Nicky has to be strong now, even though she hates Vinnie more than ever in this moment.

She’s hated ‘Vince Muccio’ in the abstract ever since she’d found out the name of the man Lorna married, but there had always been part of her that knew her hatred was born out of jealousy. She didn’t know the man; maybe he was great, who was she to say? Ever since coming back from Max, Nicky had always harbored the secret hope that Lorna still wanted _her_ , but when it became clear she didn’t… well, Nicky had at least hoped Lorna had married someone with the backbone to fight for her. Because to Nicky, Lorna has always been the kind of girl worth fighting for—and the kind of girl who needs fighting for, often. If Nicky couldn’t be the one to do that, she’d hoped Vince would be the sort of person who could.

But what has Vinnie done, really? Show up to visitation a few times, maybe put some money into Lorna’s commissary account? Fuck her in said visitation room and then bail the second there’s a possibility of him having to take any responsibility for his actions? He’s her _husband_ , for fuck’s sake. He _should_ be Lorna’s knight in shining armor, and yet Nicky is here having to coerce him into doing the right thing. Vinnie should be fucking ashamed of himself.

She doesn’t understand how Vinnie could ever leave Lorna. Not just because Lorna is so obviously a catch—goofy and genuine and kind and beautiful—but because even Nicky knows that when you make a commitment to someone, you _follow through._ Nicky may not have much experience with marriage, but she damn well knows the meaning of loyalty. She’ll never be capable of walking away from Lorna. Even though being with her is shitty sometimes, even though it tears Nicky’s heart out and makes her want to start using again, the longing is so bad. Lorna’s never gonna love her back, but Nicky doesn’t have the energy to be angry about that anymore, not in the middle of all this shit. Lorna _needs_ her, and ultimately, that’s all that matters.

_Fuck Vinnie,_ she’d said, _we’ll make it work._ I _will help you._

And she means it. She knows that she and Lorna can make it through this together, even if they’re only friends. Nicky has never wanted the responsibility of raising a child—she’s always been too afraid that she’d fuck up a kid the way Marka had fucked her up—but the difference between her and Vinnie is that she would never let that fear make her give up on the woman she loves more than anything in the world. She wishes she could hang up on him, let him walk away from Lorna like the fucking coward he is. If he’s too much of a fool to see he has everything he’s ever wanted—everything _Nicky_ has ever wanted—then that’s his loss. He doesn’t deserve to be with Lorna.

But she knows that would be selfish. And Nicky has spent _so much_ of her life making selfish choices. Having seen Lorna sitting there, broken and defeated on the floor and worried about the future of her baby… well, Nicky knows she can’t replace Vinnie. She won’t be there to take care of the little one after Lorna gives birth. She won’t be able to wake up in the middle of the night with the baby or clean up the messes they make or take cute little pictures to send to Lorna—because she will still be in prison. Lorna will be, too. But Vinnie can do those things, and that is why Nicky has to convince him to come back to Lorna, even though she wishes more than anything that she could tell him to fuck off forever.

“You know,” she says, and it’s the hardest thing she’s ever had to say, “all her life, all she has ever wanted is for somebody to reassure her that she is worthy of love. So if you do that, then… you know, she will be good to you, she will take care of you, I mean, she will even overlook all of those things that are so deeply _fucked-up_ in you.”

She knows she’s not talking about Vinnie, not anymore. She wishes she could say these things to Lorna—their relationship needs some fucking _honesty_ , Nicky thinks—but it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it’s best that Lorna never knows how much of a force for good she’s been in Nicky’s life, how the image of her smile in Nicky’s mind was what she’d been clinging to when she’d been getting clean the last time. No one has ever made Nicky feel _seen_ the way Lorna does, like despite all the fucking awful decisions she’s made in her life, she’s still someone worth knowing.

She takes a deep breath. “Uh, and yeah. When she gets out of here she will, uh, I dunno, probably hack your phone or maybe key some female coworker’s car. But she’s gonna do it ‘cause she loves you.” Nicky’s voice breaks, and she can barely hold back the tears. “And, uh, I mean, some people would give anything to be loved like that.”

This is what it means to be someone’s _friend,_ Nicky realizes now. She’s doing this because it’s what’s best for Lorna, not for herself. It’s not tit-for-tat, not _I got clean, now let me fuck you._ It isn’t about Nicky at all, and maybe if she’d been able to wrap her head around that earlier, she could’ve avoided all this heartbreak.

“That’s all I gotta say,” she finishes, feeling clumsy and ineloquent. “Just stew in your juice, and then, uh, yeah, do the right thing.”

And it hurts. It hurts hearing that silence on the other end of the telephone line, and it hurts thinking about Vinnie next to Lorna’s hospital bed, smiling down at her while she holds their newborn baby. But Nicky tries to just accept the pain instead of channeling it into self-destructiveness the way she usually does. At least this way, Lorna will be happy.

Then Vinnie’s voice is back, crackling over the line as he clears his throat, sounding choked-up.

“I can’t.” His voice breaks, and Nicky feels like she should feel bad for him. She doesn’t. “Tell Lorn I’m sorry.”

*

Nicky doesn’t have time to break it to her gently. Twenty-four hours ago, it had seemed like they had all the time in the world, but now everything is suddenly urgent. The riot is crumbling around them, and if they don’t move quickly, they’ll both be trapped in the rubble.

Lorna looks up at her with those big, teary eyes as Nicky rushes back into the pharmacy, gesturing for her to sit down beside her. Nicky knows she doesn’t have time for that, but she doesn’t hesitate to tuck herself in beside Lorna, letting the brunette rest her head on her shoulder. She feels the two of them breathing in the same rhythm, in and out like the waves of a calm ocean, and savors the moment for one, two, three seconds before she says it:

“Vinnie’s not coming back.”

Instantly, Lorna’s body tenses as she pulls away from Nicky, her head leaving Nicky’s shoulders as she curls in on herself. Nicky reaches out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but there’s no response. Lorna is so still, so quiet, cold like stone.

“Lorna. Kid, look at me.”

It takes a moment, but Lorna releases her breath in a shuddering sigh and looks up to meet Nicky’s eyes. Her face glows, pale and hopeless in the dim light, almost like a ghost. Her hair is tousled and dirty, her makeup streaming down her cheeks. She doesn’t look beautiful, just haunted.

“I meant it,” Nicky says, reaching for her hand. Lorna lets her take it, although her grasp is limp. “We’ll be okay, alright? We’ll get through this together.”

Lorna sniffs. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Truth be told, she doesn’t know if that’s a promise she can keep. Lord only knows what’s going to happen to both of them after the riot is over, but Nicky won’t let herself think about it. Right now, this is what Lorna needs to hear. She needs to think she’s gonna be okay after all this blows over.

“We’re gonna go right back to shitty normal,” Nicky says, and is pleased when her words elicit a choked laugh from Lorna.

Maybe it’s not true, but shitty normal is better than the unknown. It’s better than thinking about what might happen when Piscatella’s guards storm the prison and tear them apart, maybe for the last time. For a moment, Nicky wishes she could be like Lorna. Her world may be a fantasy, but it brings with it a resolute sense of optimism, the unwavering belief that everything will turn out okay in the end. Fantasy is dangerous, but Nicky thinks it might be easier than the cold fear coiling its way into her chest as she takes Lorna in her arms one last time. She kisses the top of Lorna’s brown hair, wishing it were her lips instead.

“Just hang in there, kid,” she murmurs. If fantasy can spare Lorna some heartache, maybe it’s for the best this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the canon divergence begins! I don't hate Vinnie as a character, but I always wished they'd had him walk away at this point so Nicky and Lorna could be together. (Clearly, I'm biased.) Anyway, this is a fix-it fic, so this'll be happier than canon from here on out, although not without a few bumps in the road.  
> Thanks for reading!


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